Roscoe and Emerson Burkhart

Recent turns of events have brought me to know my grandfather. He has never chosen to know me and at the age of nearly 40 I am getting to know him. probably for the first time in my life. While attending Columbus College of Art & Design  in 1991 I discovered that my grandfather painted and had attended CCAD for a period of time. This was all news to me. I saw him maybe once a year, if that and it was always brief. He is now 92 years old and is back in Ohio. When visiting him last month he began to tell stories about his friendship with the painter Emerson Burkhart. It is very obvious he loved Emerson very much and greatly admired his work. Emerson gave him one of his painting at one point and he treasured it. They seemed to both be wild and doing exactly what they wanted in life during their friendship. Below you see a picture of myself and my grandfather, otherwise known as Roscoe. (a name he obtained while out getting into trouble in the early days)

My grandfather was a businessman in his active days. At points he owned a roller rink in Columbus, a thriving dairy in Lancaster, Ohio, and, among other ventures, had a great ice cream shop in German Village, Ohio, for a number of years. It was dubbed "The Golden Eagle" and featured homemade ice creams, rock candy and the like, mirrors, and old school ice cream chairs and tables. A child sized one still is at my mother's house today. As a little girl I loved this, of course. I have many fond memories of the shop and my dad's import shop that was attached across the back of the building. I'd go in and Dorothy, their faithful employee for years, would take off her apron and walk me down to the bakery for a donut if someone was there to watch the shop. The building that the Golden Eagle is in now is a fantastic fine dining restaurant by the name of G. Michael's Bistro that my husband and I enjoy going to from time to time.
Here are a couple of pictures of the shop and what it was like.

The story he relayed goes as follows...
When Roscoe had his grand opening he was standing out front doing the ribbon cutting with the mayor of Columbus and the police chief when Emerson came flying down Third Street and with squealing tires and smoke flying stopped right in front of them all. After laughing and cajoling them all, he peeled out and took off down the street towards Schiller Park. The police chief and the mayor stood there, both shaking their heads and one of them said "That's Emerson!" That night Emerson asked my grandfather to come over to the studio as he has some new pieces he thought he would like. Roscoe said he'd wait to come over the next day. By that next day Emerson was gone, having passed away. My grandfather said simply "I should have gone over."

I found this story sad, but in trying to picture them laughing and getting into trouble together I can only smirk. I'll be going down to hear any more stories he can remember and maybe I'll try my hand at a Burkhart style painting for the wall in his room. He has requested a picture of cows. :)

For more information on Emerson:
http://emersonburkhart.info/about.html