Abraham Schumer, the father of Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) died Nov. 24 in a Long Island hospital after recently undergoing surgery for heart problems. He was 98.

At a news conference, Senator Schumer told the story of his own birth on Thanksgiving Day 1950. “What they used to do in those days — there was none of this spouse in the delivery room, touchy feely — they sent the husbands down to a room; they paced and smoked cigars and waited for the blessed event,” Schumer said, according to the New York Daily News. At some point, his father decided to step out of the hospital to watch the Thanksgiving Day Parade, which was happening just a few blocks away. Abraham Schumer didn’t make it back to the hospital until some five hours after the baby was actually born, “creating the first fight my parents had over me,” Schumer said. “They’ve been happily married for 72 years.”