Grandchildren of a man beaten and robbed 50 years ago will accept restitution from their beloved grandfather’s attacker.

The robber made a confession in Sunday’s Lewiston Tribune in an effort to identify the victim in order to make amends.

The Tribune’s Facebook page solved the mystery quickly.

On July 31, 1975, Lester C. Ayers, then 73, was “beaten and robbed” behind the Albertson’s Food Center in downtown Lewiston. Police said Ayers was “hit in the forehead with a tree limb by two young men,” according to an old Tribune clipping provided by the family. The two men took $76. Ayers told police the men were 18- to 19-years-old, medium height, both blonde, and one was shirtless, the other barefoot.

The robbery is Ayers family lore.

“We all remember when Grandpa had the bandage on his head,” said Debbie Asplund, a real estate agent in Lewiston, who was 13 years old in 1975. “At the time I was very angry.”

Kerry Houston, 67, of Otis, Ore., confessed to the attack after guarding the secret for decades. His confession aligns with the old Tribune report, down to the detail of recalling that the elderly man was loading expired green produce. However, Houston claimed to have been the lone robber. Houston could not be reached Monday to explain the discrepancy.

Regardless, Asplund said Houston’s confession, and desire to make amends, made this a special Thanksgiving weekend for the family. Anger over the attack faded over time — mostly.

“That’s great that he turned his life around, and I get it that he was only 17 years old,” Asplund said. “But Grandpa was 70-some-years old at the time and I was 13 years old and I had some hard feelings.”

And, no, the family has no interest in Houston’s offer to let them smack him in the back of the head with a stick if they want to get even.

Mostly, Asplund and her cousins want to share memories of a kind man, who along with his wife, Lucy, they feel blessed to have known.

The “sweet man” the family knew lived a strikingly different life from the teen who attacked him. Houston used the stolen $76 to buy drugs and beer for a weekend campout on a Snake River beach. Ayers, on the other hand, was described as a hard-working father of 10 children and 31 grandkids.

Lester and Lucy were married in 1921 in Billings, Mont., and they moved to Lewiston in 1925. Lucy eventually became a nurse, retiring from the hospital in 1963. Lester worked for Potlatch Forest Inc. on the legendary Clearwater River log drives. He died in 1988 at age 86. Lucy died at age 95 in 1996.

Lester Ayers “was a fixture” at the Albertson’s store, Asplund said. In fact, the day of the attack it was the store manager who found Lester unconscious on the ground when he noticed his old truck parked too long behind the store. Lester fed spoiled lettuce and other expired food items to his hogs, horses, cows, geese and turkeys at his farm near Warner Avenue and 14th Street in the Lewiston Orchards.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, his grandchildren shared memories of him sitting at the kitchen table, playing cards, whistling cheerfully even as he smoked a cigarette. They enjoyed pitching the produce to eager horses and cows. They remember camping trips and big slabs of butter on pancakes in the mornings. They all remember how big his smile was and his hugs and kisses.

Lester Ayers recovered from the attack and didn’t let it embitter him toward the world.

“He was maybe a little more distrusting — maybe,” Asplund said. “But my grandpa never was an angry person.”