by Margaret Waddell Dimock

This absorbing account of Ralph C. Waddell's journey through the 20th Century, as told by his daughter, will make you laugh and weep and rejoice.

As you come to know Ralph you will:

Identify with him as a fumbling seeker for his role in life.

Appreciate his sense of humor and his careful thinking.

Applaud his commitment to speaking out for peace and justice (whether you agree with him or not).

Admire his readiness to hear new views with an open mind.

Take Heart as you see him trudging faithfully up the Hills of Difficulty that confront him.

See Hope for our world of the 21st Century.

Excerpt from Chapter One - Lost Boy (1890 - 1901):

He couldn't have been more than about three years old, and he was lost. Wandering away from his parent's apartment in the decaying aristocratic section of Oakland, California, he had at first enjoyed his unchaperoned walk. Then he grew tired, and wanted to go home. But he didn't recognize any of the houses. Where was home? He began to cry.

A couple of police officers, alerted by the alarmed parents, came looking for him, picked him up, took him to the police station. The confused and scared little boy cried louder than ever, and could not even hear the kindly words assuring him that his parents would come and get him. The officers finally resorted to the classic expedient: they produced candy and gave it to the weeping child. Magic! His sobs ceased, and he found comfort in the sweet morsels until his parents arrived.

Looking back from a century later, I see a continuing thread of lostness running through the life of this particular boy, who grew up to be my father and the grandfather of my children. His personal pilgrimage is unique, as is everyone's. Yet I feel that the story of his efforts to cope with his own lostness, and his struggle to carry out the unfolding purposes of the Universe, give us a window into the groping of countless other human beings toward fullness of life.

When I was a little girl, I sometimes asked Ralph a question like, "Daddy, when you were a little boy, did you play hopscotch?"

His answer was most often a teasing, "Why, I never was a little boy!"

Nevertheless, through my growing-up years, he did reveal bits and pieces about the boyhood he denied in jest. The distressing experience in the police station was one. Another memory he shared was how he lost his way when he was six. The family, now including three younger siblings, had moved to a better area of town, east of Lake Merritt. Although Ralph had already learned to read a good deal at home, it was time for him to have some formal schooling. Grandpa Adams walked with him to the school, and enrolled him in the low-first grade. Toward the hour of dismissal, Grandpa arrived at the same classroom to find that Ralph had been moved to the high-first. A message was sent to the high-first teacher, who looked around and asked, "Is Ralph Waddell here?" Ralph sat still, too timid and frightened to speak, and Grandpa went home without him.

"After school I had to find my own way home, and I got entirely lost. But this time I didn't cry," he recalled with a note of pride. "I had more confidence. Systematically I looked down one street and then another, and finally saw, far away, a Methodist church thats was familiar. I had been going in the wrong direction!"

He reversed his course, and when he came to a hill with eucalyptus trees, he knew he was near his home on Newton Avenue. As he walked up the slope, he met his worried grandfather starting out to look for him.

"Well, where've you been?" Grandpa demanded. "What have you been doing?"

Ralph wouldn't admit he'd been lost. "Oh, I'm just coming home from school," he replied nonchalantly.

When I was in my mid-teens, and the two of us were alone, Ralph confided to me another kind of lostness. We were leaning against the rail of a ferry boat ......