“I knew I was going to join the Marines when I was six years old,” said Dick Updaw, as he stood next to the barn he built on his farmland in Rush. Wearing a plaid button-snap shirt, work pants and boots, and a Marine Corps veteran hat, Dick remembers how his time in Vietnam and the armed forces had shaped his life. “You learn to never take things for granted,” he said, relaying how he eventually retired from the explosives industry and settled into life as a farmer on his 59-acre property.
His love of his country, and for those who served, has been a big part of his life in Rush. Each Memorial Day, Dick places flags on his father’s grave as well as other veterans’ graves he knew who have passed away. In 2004, while visiting the cemetery with a friend, he noticed a headstone next to one of his friend’s, Mike Hodes, with the name of Bob Hodes. Dick asked Mike’s widow, Yvonne, who Bob was and she explained “He was Mike’s older brother who died in World War II. Bob was the golden boy in the family. They were so fractured by his death, that once he was buried, they never talked about him again.”
Dick was bothered by the fact that Bob was not remembered and honored as a military veteran. “I consider myself his spokesman now. I’m bearing witness to his existence. I didn’t want his memory and name to disappear. He’s like a long-lost brother to me,” explained Dick. Dick took a trip to Iwo Jima where Bob had been killed, traced the last steps Bob had taken, spoke with some of the last people to see him alive, and contemplated how to remember this man he never got to know.
LAND HEALS IN UNEXPECTED WAYS
Along that journey, Dick discovered that his own farm had once been home to Bob’s relatives. “We played in those barns. We were in and out of the farmhouse,” remembered Bob’s cousin Jack.
This fall, when he protected his land with Genesee Land Trust, Dick relayed that he’s always been a farm boy at heart. “Conserving my land was the perfect solution to my situation. The farm is a sacred place for me, and I’m proud to say it will remain that way forever.” Bob was memorialized in 2012 with a statue in Dick’s front lawn and now proudly stands watch over his great-great-grandfather’s farm. The land, and those memories, will now be passed on for generations.