My Hero Story

By: Elizabeth W.

My hero is my grandfather. His name is Fred Schrader and he is 74 years old. He was born in 1937 in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Currently, he lives in a small yellow house in Wayne, Pennsylvania with my grandmother. In the winter Pennsylvania is super cold, so during the winter my grandparents decided to live in a wonderful and warm house by the water on Marco Island, Florida. He is retired now, but he used to be an engineer. If you met him, you could tell because he is always looking for a job to do or something to fix. That works well for our family because we are constantly breaking things and needing things built. Most people call him Fred but, we call him Bubba. We call him that because when my oldest cousin was little, he couldn’t say grandma and grandpa. After a lot of frustration trying to get him to say it, they gave up. He ended up calling them Ammam and Bubba.

When my grandfather was younger, he had an ideal childhood because he had loving parents and three brothers who played sports with him. His brothers are a lot like him and have similar traits. He liked having a big family and he still does. When he was younger he was extremely interested in sports.  He played for all of the sports teams that were offered at his school. Since he cared so much about sports, he set goals to be very successful in football, soccer, basketball, and baseball. After a lot of years of playing on sports teams, he was very athletic. His brothers helped him practice too by playing with him whenever they were bored. They grew up in a suburban area with lots of people, so he had lots of friends in that neighborhood. He is still friends with them now. He likes being able to live close to where he grew up now so that he can hold on to all of the wonderful memories of his community and his friends. He met my grandmother in high school because she changed schools. They didn’t really know each other that well until college. He went to Princeton College and then he started dating my grandmother. She went to Centenary, so they were close together. I bet when they were dating they never thought they would end up being together for almost fifty-one years.

One of the traits I think my grandfather displays that is heroic is bravery. He is a very brave man and has always been. One of the stories I heard from him that I thought was the bravest, was the story where he put out a fire in the church. He was thirty years old and he was at church for a regular morning service. An acolyte was lighting a candle when he ignited a Christmas wreath near the pulpit. It instantly started a small, but noticeablel, blaze. My grandfather showed a lot of bravery when rushed up, jumped over all of the pews in church, straight to the pulpit and put out the fire by clapping his hands on the flames. His hands were blacken but not burned. His jacket was burned pretty badly though, so he had to get rid of it. Even though his hands weren’t burned from the fire, they were still hot from clapping it out. It was scary, but was all over in a matter of seconds. Later he found out that there was a fire extinguisher under the pulpit. They got to the extinguisher slowly, but by the time they got it, he had already put the fire out with his hands. A lot of people are lucky he is quick to think and so brave.

Another heroic trait my grandfather shows is kindness and caring for others. I really respect, and love him for showing this trait often. He is strict when he needs to be, but he is mostly nice. He is kind to everyone in our family, even if we accidentally drop things into the water when we are in Florida. There is one particular story that I think shoe shoe warm-hearted he is. In high school, when he was fifteen, he had just finished baseball when he was walking home with a friend named Joe Mahoney. He was acting silly and he felt like it would be funny to push Joe into the bushes. When Joe wasn’t looking he pushed him into the bushes out of nowhere. Joe was super mad and stomped off in fury. When my grandfather was 73 he was in the kitchen with my grandmother and after 58 years of feeling guilty, my grandfather told my grandmother, “I need to apoligize to Joe Mahoney about pushing him into the bushes after baseball in junior high.” He followed through with his idea. Later that night, he got the phone and called him. Most people woud have forgotten after all of those years, but he called and apoligized and Joe was vey grateful for him apoligizing. My grandfather was happier too because he apoligized and didn’t feel guilty anymore. I thought that he was super kind for apoligizing to a person after 58 years. I‘m sure that Joe, who lives in Kanss now, would agree that my grandfather is a big-hearted man.

One other heroic trait my grandfather shows is helpfulness. He showed this when the church caught on fire. Another place where he shows is in his old job as an engineer. When powerlines went down, it didn’t matter what time of day it was, or what the weather was like, my grandfather and his fellow workers, woud go out and fix them. They kept people from getting was hurt and cars could drive smoothly on the road. I am really proud of him that he helped so many people by doing this. Even though it was hard, he liked it because he liked helping people. The job was putting power lines back up is very difficult. He says he could have never done it without his friends and coworkers. I bet they were an amazing team together.

My grandfather influenced my life by teaching me what to do and what not to do in life. He has been a great role model for me. He taught me about kindness, bravery, and helpfulness throughout my life with stories like the one about Joe Mahoney. He told me what not to do before I had to learn the hard way and he makes me laugh all of the time. He has an ability to turn any situation into a good one and he has an amazing sense of humor. He helps me through tough times when I need help and he is my hero. He will always be my hero.