This picture was taken when my dad was about 7 years old. It's hard to imagine your father as a child. He had a rather strict father, but a very gentle mother. When he talked about his childhood it was usually about growing up on a ranch, herding steers out to pasture or wherever they could find good places for them to graze. He would stay days at a time away from home before he would bring them back. He talked about breaking in wild horses when he was a little bit older. He loved it and was good at it. He always sang us songs about cowboys: "Poor Jack Was Just A Cowboy" and "Little Joe, the Wrangler" were a couple of them. His dream was to have a family, be a farmer or rancher and raise his children there. 
He tells about how one day his father came to the family and told them he had sold the ranch, was going to buy another place and use some of the money from the sell of the ranch to send my dad on a mission. My dad had a missionary heart. He was thrilled. He was sent and spent the last year of his mission in West Virginia where he met my mom. He kept a journal of his experiences and it is evident from all his entries that he worked very hard, occasionally not having enough food, and not having too much success. That changed when he moved to the city where my mom lived with her mother and sisters. My widowed grandmother, Minnie Merrell, fed all the missionaries as often as they needed and took care of them in every way she could. He grew to love this lady and especially one of her daughters.
I remember one day while driving him to see his brother, Jerry about a year ago. Out of the blue, he asked, "Jenny, would you support mom and I on another mission?" I was a little taken back and asked him what kind of a mission was he thinking of....a ward missionary, helping support missionaries financially, or a full-time missionary. (Somehow I knew what his answer was going to be). He said, "A full time mission". He wanted to put papers in. I smiled remembering that he has always been an enthusiastic missionary for the church. I told him, I was pretty sure he would have to pass a medical examination first. My mom, or course, chimed in saying, "Arthur, we can't go on a mission, you can't walk!!" I will always remember this knowing that his heart was so willing. No one I have ever met has desired to do missionary work for the Lord more than my dad.
Farmer
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Oh, how he loved farming! He worked so hard both in Chilco, Idaho and Moses Lake, Washington. To help make ends meet he also worked as a lumberjack near Kellog, Idaho. That was hard work. I remember sleeping in a tent for several days at a time while he worked cutting trees for lumber. I also remember he cut trees for Christmas and hauled them to Arizona to sell in December. He taught us how to work hard, too. I learned to disk and harrow with a team of horses when I was 8 or 9. When he thought I was old enough he taught me to drive. I was responsible from the time I was 9 until I was almost 13 to take big huge milk cans in the car trunk and fill them with water from the neighbors until we could dig a well. I actually liked helping him in the fields, although not crazy about thinning the beets. He would come in at night just exhausted and having back pain. Here is a picture of our family when we lived in Moses Lake.
Dad and Mom in the back row,
From right to left in 2nd row: Jenny, Sandee, Myron, Ed, Sharon, Jan
From left to right in 3rd row: Mark, Roseanne, Nancy Kerry, and Amy
This is where we lived in a 4 room house, built by my dad. He was planning on digging a well and building a big home after the harvest of his first crops. I can still see him in my mind's eye looking out over his crops and admiring how good they were looking, telling us how this was going to be a good year, and talked of his plans for building our new home, building a barn a little later and having all his kids learn farm work. I was always proud to drive up to our farm and see how beautiful the crops looked. Other farms had weeds growing just as big as their crops, but our didn't. Sandee and I were old enough to milk the 1 cow we had, but the others were a little too young to learn to do as much work. Unfortunately, his crops froze or for some other reason did not yield a good crop for 3 years. It breaks my heart to remember how hard he worked and how hard he tried to make living as a farmer.
I remember the day he came home and told us that Boeing (a branch in Moses Lake) had hired him, was sending back to school to the University of Washington. I was very nervous about moving to such a big city. I could tell dad was just hoping to work long enough to save enough money to come back to farming.My mom was relieved. She always worried about my dad and his back pain. So we packed up everything we owned and moved to Seattle.
Dad worked at Boeing until he retired. He was smart, wrote manuals for the flight analyst program at Boeing, taught classes and for some reason they always kept him on even when Boeing was laying off thousands of their employees. He won many awards...here is a picture of him receiving one of them.
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This is how I remember my dad the most,
Random Thoughts:
No one worked harder than my dad. I remember one time wanting a formal for a church dance - the Gold and Green Ball. I knew there was no extra money and had just decided not to go. My dad came up with some money somehow and insisted that we go out and find me a formal dress. I had mixed emotions about that. I knew we needed the money for other things, I really wanted to go to the dance, and I knew my dad would be hurt if I turned him down. I hadn't seen that soft side of him before. He was usually telling me not to be proud and to wear the best Sunday dress I had.
I remember that he always found someone who needed a ride to church. Since we had absolutely no room in our car he had the oldest children walk to church, which was a couple miles or more. I walked in heels up those steep Seattle hills. The day we got our big van was so exciting. We had room for everyone in one trip. Of course there were no seatbelt laws and half of us held a younger sibling on our laps.
I remember him playing a lot of sports with his kids. Basketball at the church, softball in any field he could find, bowling leagues and football at any picnic we had.
My dad held family home evenings before it became an offical program of the church on Monday nights. We called them Family Night. It always included a little lesson, songs, and everyone got to do a little trick or stunt...which was most often, standing on your hands, singing a song, wrestling, or our favorite was when mom and dad would box. My mom is related to Jack Dempsey and she was a boxer. She could box my dad right into a corner and took it quite seriously,. My dad usually started lauging at her, which made her box all the harder. I think it would have been kind of hard for my dad to jab her very hard in front of all his kids. We always had some kind of refreshment which was important in keeping everyone interested in the activity. I remember one particulary home evening. He had decided we were going to go around the room and tell each other one thing we really like about them. I was at an age, where I was not a very nice teen-ager. I pretty much ignored my dad at this age, and complained a lot to my mother. The part I remember the most, was when it came time for my dad to say something about me, I held my breath. I knew I did not deserve any kind comments from him. I also knew my dad would not just make something up. I remember to this day, that he said I had the prettiest smile of all the people he knew and that he loved it when I did smile. Whew! I was glad he said something good, but most of all I have never forgotten it all these years.
When I was helping to care for him in his later years, he was so appreciative and humble. He rarely complained. I remember one day the last 2 weeks of his life, he was sitting in his big chair and I noticed that he was making his leg go up and down constantly. I asked him why? He had a difficult time telling me so I asked him a lot of questions. Come to find out, his bum was sore and it hurting him a lot. There was no groaning, no loud noises, just moving his leg up and down. Once we figured it out, we moved him to his bed on his side and he whispered, "Thanks, Jenny!"
I loved how he treated my mom, especially after she started having a lot of memory problems. No matter how many times she repeated a story, he listened. If someone asked her a queston and she couldn't remember the answer, he would just quietly say the answer. Whereever they were, my mom didn't stray too far away from him. He was her security! On the other hand, she always was close by in case he needed her for anything. Their's is a marriage that grew and evolved over time to the most comfortable, trusting, and loving relationship I have ever seen.
My most fond memory of him was when he came to visit me in France while I was on my mission. He had been sent to England by Boeing and took a little side trip to France. I was serving near Paris and so it was easy to make connections. I remember seeing him at customs, and looking a little nervous that everyone was talking French. He seemed rather relieved that I was able to come nearby and translate for him. He was fun for my companion and I. He went to one of our church activities. It was fun introducing him to everyone. A lot of the youth loved trying to talk to him in English, which was nice for him. But, what I remember the most, was the father's blessing he gave me. I had been sick a lot and was discouraged. I felt a lot of peace after that and knew I was being looked after by a loving Heavenly Father.
Having been the oldest I have seen the most transformation in my dad than most of the other siblings. (I am sure that is true for most oldest children.) I remember him being strict, sometimes a little harsh, and quite rigid. But, I always knew he wanted to be a good person. He wanted to be the best father he could. I saw how the gospel softened him and guided him to be the gentle, most compassionate, most appreciative, most loving person there ever could be. Now, I have no excuse for not becoming a better person, having the perfect example of a person who showed by example how one humbles himself and changes to become the person he was meant to be.
I am grateful to have had this wonderful man as my father. He was just the father I needed even in his most imperfect moments. I love him and look forward to being with him and mom in the eternities....if I can measure up.
We are proud of you, dad!
