#kat's awesome granddad

[onbearfeet]

A puzzle for the Tumblr sleuths

So today (6/29/2023) I was handed this piece of paper and asked if I could read the penciled writing on the second page.

I can't. And it turns out to be a bit of a mystery.

So, context. The ink handwriting belongs to my paternal grandfather, who developed a very specific hand as a finance officer for the US Army. I can read that easily enough. It seems to be the lyrics for a hymn (the "city four-square" is presumably heaven) ... but it's not any hymn I've ever heard, nor one my dad could find in his giant internet hymn index (yeah, that's a thing). Originally we thought he'd written down the lyrics so he could sing them in church, but now it's looking more like he ... wrote his own hymn? He wasn't known to write music, but he was a deeply religious man who taught Sunday School for decades, so maybe? Weird that none of us ever heard about it, though.

(And hey, hi, before you dunk on the guy for his religiosity, this is the grandfather who made sure, after his son married a half-Jewish woman, that his very Jewish-looking granddaughter knew all about the Holocaust and that Nazis are to be FUCKED UP AT THE FIRST OPPORTUNITY, do not pass go, do not collect 200 Nazi dollars, especiallyif they were going after Jews. He's why I started that riot in the third grade. He also considered participating in the desegregation of the Army to be one of the greatest honors of his life. The man wasn't perfect, but for a dude born in 1918, he was TRYING. I get religious trauma, I HAVE religious trauma, but Granddad generally tried to be one of the less shitty ones.)

More context. This piece of paper was found in a box of old family photos and documents that Dad's sister sent us with the explanation that "your baby pictures are in there". Some of the images Dad recognizes; some contain people and places that ring absolutely no bells. (It happens when you're an Army brat raised all over the world, 70-odd years ago. He doesn't have any particular memory problems, but nobody remembers everything after 70 years.)

The pencil handwriting is NOT Granddad's, nor Grandma's. Dysgraphia kinda runs in the family, though, so it could be a relative. The only candidate we could think of was Granddad's sister, Alice, from whom we have no handwriting samples, but Granddad and Alice didn't get along AT ALL and I don't know why she'd have been writing on his piece of paper. They were hardly ever in the same physical space after about 1940.

Additional context: Granddad was in the Army from 1940 to 1960 and moved around A LOT, so very few things got kept from pre-1960. Thus, either this paper is post-1960, or it was really important, or both. Granddad died in 2000, and his arthritis fucked up his handwriting before that, so I would estimate the ink text was created no later than 1990. Going by the color and condition of the paper, I would guess it's significantly older than that.

I don't know who put it in the box with the photos; it might have been my aunt, or Alice (who was close with my aunt), or literally anyone else. We're hoping the pencil text will explain the ink.

Oh. And Granddad was absolutely privy to some wild shit in the Army, so there is a slim but nonzero chance this is bizarro spy nonsense. I know he turned down one job offer from the CIA, but that story always had the air of "they already knew me from that thing that time". I very much doubt this is spy shit, but you never exactly know. Every few years I find out something new and insane about my grandparents.

So, uh ... anyone know how I might get some help reading this thing?

P.S. If you need something to call him other than Granddad, feel free to use JB or his Army nickname--Bear. Yeah, I know. But dude was a GIGANTIC BEARLIKE HUMAN. The name fit.