The Traditions of Our Fathers

My Dad was raised on a farm in Wyoming.  He graduated from High School in May 1943. His education summary, provided to the US Army at the time of his enlistment, gave his hobby as model airplane building and listed his vocational plans as agriculture and mechanics. A little over a year after graduating, in September 1944, he enlisted in the US Army, entering the service on Sept 26, 1944. This was about two months after the Allied invasion of Normandy, which began the liberation of Europe, and what was considered the turning point of the war in the European theater, also when German Army was defeated by the Soviets at Stalingrad. The war in the Pacific was already on the offensive after the hard won Japanese defeat at the Battle of Midway in June 1942.

1943

He served in the Pacific Theater, taking part in the Philippine Liberation and being part of the Japanese Occupation army. His service was as a surgical technician with the Second Battalion.  As a result of that service, he was awarded the Victory Medal (1945), which is awarded for service between 7 December 1941 and 31 December 1946, and the Good Conduct medal (1946) which is awarded to any active-duty enlisted member of the United States military who completes one year of "honorable and faithful service" if during times of active war.

The Japanese surrendered on August 14, 1945 and Dad was honorably discharged on Nov 24, 1946 after which he returned home and began preparations to go on a mission.

1946

Dad was called and served a mission in the Eastern States Mission from January 1947 through January 1949, serving in Uniontown and Allentown in Pennsylvania, and in Crown Point, Plattsburg, and Middleton in New York.  His mission presidents were Roy M Doxey, who later worked as Dean of Religious Instruction at BYU and served as Director of the Church Correlation Committee, and George Q Morris, who went on to be called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. 

1948

Towards the end of his mission his mission president decided to get the Hill Cumorrah Pageant up and running again and used his missionaries to get this done. The pageant had first been performed in 1939 but because of the war production had stopped after only three seasons. So my dad was a cast member in the Cumorrah Pageant.

Dad in costume, stage center

After completing his mission he returned home by train, again traveling home to the family farm in Wyoming. He enrolled in school right away and began his studies in March 1949 and while in school  joined the US Army Reserves in Dec 1950,  However, his studies were interrupted by the Korean War.  

1954

Because of his service in the reserves, he was called to active duty again in February 1953 being stationed in Virginia to begin his active duty as a Second Lieutenant, where he was attached to the 647th Quartermaster’s Refrigeration Company.   However, while there the armistice was signed, ending the Korean conflict and he was released from active duty in August 1953.  At that point he returned to school.  My grandfather had torn down an old house that had stood on the property next to the family home and hauled the material 150 miles where he built a small house that several of his children lived in while they went to school, including my Dad until he got married.  My parents lived in campus housing for the first year or so of their marriage.  At that point Dad’s brothers and sisters had finished school so my parents moved into the house my grandpa built.  They lived in that little house until Dad graduated in 1954.  Dad graduated with a bachelor’s of science - his major was Agricultural Education and his minor was Farm Mechanics, the same subjects he had listed as his interests in high school.  His degree included a teaching certificate.

1968

After graduating in August 1954 he worked a year teaching public school (Weber School District) before applying to work for the Inter-mountain Indian School (IIS) in Brigham City, Utah in Sept 1955.  While working for the IIS he went back to school and earned his master’s degree in Education Administration, finishing in Sept 1959.  A year later, in Nov 1959 he got on with the Air Force, working at Hill Air Force Base where he worked until he retired.  He remained in the reserves until he reached retirement in 1978.  While in the reserves he was decorated with the Reserves Commendation Medal (1964).

Taken in 1980

Dad contracted diabetes and eventually died of complications in 1988.

I remember only once being ”spanked” by my Dad - I totally earned it. I remember hearing him swear only once - it was not in anger but instead he, my brother, and I were playing with firecrackers and it was a pretty funny moment. We recently had a new Elders Quorum president called in our ward. Each week he's been starting or meetings by having everyone state their name and the tell something about themselves. This morning we were to state something we enjoyed doing with our dads when we were kids. As I thought about it, since I was near the end, the thing I enjoyed most with my Dad was working with him. We used to go up to his family's farm before my grandpa retired and help with the farm work; working with the livestock, putting up hay, irrigating the fields, making repairs around the ranch. I also remember working on our stake’s welfare farm, which was a vegetable farm. We'd thin onions, hoe beans or beets rows that seemed miles long. In the fall we'd harvest those vegetable, sacking onions or potatoes, loading the sacks, stitching those sacks closed, and the loading them on wagons. I enjoyed working those welfare assignments with him. It was where he taught me to work until the job was done, not just until you got tired or tired of the work. After I came home from my mission I lived at home when I wasn't away at school until I got married. It was during that time that was the last time we did a welfare assignment together. As we walked back in from the field together we passed a plot that was being irrigated with siphons and I noticed several had stopped so as we walked by the plot I stepped over and started each one that wasn't going. It was a skill I had recently learned and was pretty good at - he was impressed, it was something he'd never learned. He complimented me. It felt great.

There was a song written by David Gates that was released in 1972 that expresses some of my feelings about my Dad. Gates wrote it about his Dad who had died by then:

“You sheltered me from harm
Kept me warm, kept me warm
You gave my life to me
Set me free, set me free
The finest years I ever knew
Were all the years I had with you
...
“You taught me how to love
What it's of, what it's of.
You never said too much
But still you showed the way
And I knew from watching you”

That was my Dad - quiet and soft spoken. I remember him only once ever saying anything about his time in the military. But there was never any doubt of his feelings for my Mom, us kids, or me. I never had any doubt about the love and respect my Dad felt for his parents. There was never any doubt about his dedication to the Lord.

Taken about three years before his death

My Dad passed away quite a while ago - most of my kids never knew him or don't remember him. I'm not big on funerals, I don't really like going to them regardless of who they're for. Funerals are usually the actual funeral service preceded by a ”viewing” or a time for “visitation”. I prefer to skip visitations, the only reason I went when my Dad died was at the specific request of my Mom. But in the end I was glad I did; person after person, for the whole time, told of their admiration for my Dad, and particularly at the end of his life after the diabetes had ravaged his body - left him blind and barely able to walk only with great difficulty. But still he did what he could, working to the end of the job and not just until he got tired and worn out. I got an expanded glimpse of the lives he touched during his life. I was very blessed to have had the father I had and even though I made a conscious decision to do some things in my relationship with my children different than what had been my relationship with my Dad, I am still very, very grateful he was my Dad. The more I learn about him, and thereby come to understand him better, the more I come to love and appreciate him and what he has done for me. I still think of him often. I will be eternally grateful that he was in my life as long as I was blessed to have him in my life.