Memories of My Father

by Margaret

Dad was always my ideal of a good man: hard-working, reliable, intelligent, kind, fair, and especially honest. Mother used to tell the story of meeting him, to underscore his honesty. She said that she was with a girl she knew, a rather good-looking flirtatious girl, I assume. They were going through a cafeteria line while in college. This other girl told Mom that she was having trouble with one of her classes (maybe history), but she knew how to handle that. She was going to get that smart fellow in the cafeteria line to take the test for her. (Dad was working his way though college.) So as they went through the line, this girl batted her eyelashes and asked Dad if he wouldn’t take this test for her, that she was worried about passing. “Oh, no. I couldn’t do that,” he said. This very much impressed Mom. Later she figured out a way to ask him on a date. She invited him to a picnic, and I assume made the picnic lunch.

Dad would occasionally tell stories about when he was young. It sounded like his family was very poor. (His father after all had been gravely injured by lye in his eyes as a very young man.) Dad told us that sometimes they only had lumpydick for dinner. Lumpydick was a paste of flour and water! They also sometimes only had bread and milk for a meal. However, this seems to have been a comfort food for him. I remember he would occasionally get a glass and put bread crumbs and milk into it and eat it with a spoon.

Reading his Patriarchal blessing, I noted that it talks about healing the sick. Maybe that was part of the impetus in beginning his university work in pre-med. He later changed to Economics, and received his bachelors from the University of Utah and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. However, we used to tease him about still wanting to be a doctor. He gave Mother and me allergy shots when I was about 11. But, the best thing he did in this line, as far as I am concerned, was to deliver me when I was a baby.

I was born on a Saturday at a Seventh Day Adventist hospital. Mother had been in labor with me for nearly 36 hours (she was 43 which might have been the reason), and the doctor decided that the baby wasn’t coming anytime soon. So, he went to church. However, the baby (me) decided to come while he was gone. This became clear to my mother and father, so my father went scurrying around trying to find someone to deliver me. Apparently there were no available doctors at the time, and the nurses weren’t going to have anything to do with such an endeavor. So, Dad was stuck. He had to deliver me. But that has always been very special to me to know that he was the one in charge of catching me when I entered this world.

Dad was sensitive, and at home was much more quiet than Mom. He left the running of the household and family to her. She told me that early in their marriage they agreed to never fight in front of the children. I doubt if they ever did “fight”. All of their children have the reputation in their marriages of not fighting. But they didn’t even disagree with each other in front of the children. When Dad worked at Brigham Young University and had some difficulties, he was not usually the one to share these problems with us. He would tell Mom and she would tell Dave and myself. She told others in the family too, but while we lived at home, we were the likeliest people to hear these issues from her. But occasionally he would show his sensitive side. I remember once we went up to Salt Lake City to see a special movie. I think it was Ben Hur or The Ten Commandments. There was a scene in the movie which was very moving and made me cry. At the intermission, we went outside and Dad could see that I was still sniffling. Very quietly he told me that he too had been very moved by that part of the movie, and it had brought tears to his eyes.

At BYU, as Academic Vice President, he was very concerned about making the right decisions, being fair, and working for the good of the faculty. He said that faculty members would come to him, sometimes over and over again, even when there were others who accepted their lot without complaint. He really wanted to be fair though and not give in to the squeaky wheel, but to give attention to those who deserved it most. If you read his writing about the Longshoreman’s Strike in San Francisco in the 1930’s you will know that he was quite politically liberal in his youth. That changed some living in Utah, which was much more conservative than Colorado had been. Once when Hubert Humphrey (Vice President of the U.S., and later candidate for President) came to speak at a Forum at BYU, he picked up immediately that Dad was more sympathetic to the Democrats than were the others at BYU, he (HH) send Christmas cards every year after that.

There is another story that was told to me by Tom Chaney, a friend of Earl and Della in Provo. I heard this story after both of the folks had died. Mr. Chaney was on the faculty for years in the English department. In fact, many of the personal friends our folks had in Provo were in the English department. Chaney had for years been concerned about the stance that the LDS Church took on the Negroes, not allowing them the priesthood, and not even encouraging them to join the Church. This was disturbing to many liberals in the Church, who felt that all people should be allowed this opportunity. Mr. Chaney was for some reason in a situation in which he was giving a speech (I know it was not in Church, and it likely was not even in Utah). He was asked if he thought the Church would ever change its position and allow the Negroes the priesthood. He very carefully said that of course he couldn’t say for sure, and he could not presume to speak for the Church, but he personally did have an opinion on the subject. He felt personally that someday the Church would change its position. This opinion was based on the fact that he felt that it would only be fair to allow Negroes this opportunity, and he thought that the Church, because he believe so strongly that it was true, would someday seek revelation on the subject , and because God is just and speaks to his prophets, the Church would be instructed to allow Negroes into the fold. In spite of the change which did take place years later in the Church on this question, this was an extremely radical position for someone in the LDS Church to speak publicly about in the late 1950’s or 1960’s.

When the other university authorities heard that he had spoken his mind so openly on this very touchy subject, there were those adamantly in favor of firing Mr. Chaney from BYU. What he had said, to them, was totally out-of-line. However, my father was the voice of reason (in my opinion and that of Tom Chaney). He argued against this persuasively enough to keep Mr. Chaney on the faculty. Years later, he was clearly still very grateful for this action of my father’s on his behalf. I believe Dad was very often working behind the scenes for fairness and right.

One of the on-going issues for Dad was the problem of dealing with his boss. The president of the university at the time, was a self-made man, known for his court case to win money for the American Indians. He accepted the position as university president at the also well-known salary of a dollar a year. He made a major effort to develop the campus of BYU, and a considerable amount of building took place during his tenure.

However, he was not any easy man with which to get along. I heard several stories about him from Mother, most of which she undoubtedly heard from Dad. I do not know Dad’s sources, but I assume they were accurate. This president of BYU liked to be on hand when the freshmen came to register each fall. He liked to be there to shake their hands. It was told that he had a very firm grip, and, so it was said, dearly liked it when he was able to bring a freshman girl to her knees with tears in her eyes with the pain of that handshake. Another story that illustrates how different this man was from my father, was reputed to have taken place in Hawaii. One of the twelve apostles of the LDS Church, and his wife, were at a very formal dinner with the president of BYU, his wife and many others. Everyone was dressed up, one supposes the ladies were wearing formal long dresses. The time came to sit down for dinner. The president of BYU pulled out the chair for his wife to sit down at the table. However, as she was about to sit, he pulled the chair out a little further, on purpose, so that she ended up sitting on the floor. He, of course thought this was a very funny joke. However, the story I heard was that this particular apostle never forgot and never forgave this totally inappropriate and unkind act to the man’s own wife.

Dad did not talk to us much about the problems which arose working for such a man, but he would express his frustration to Mother. To me, this demonstrated his loyalty (even to a man he did not always respect), and his ability as a peace-maker, a man who wanted to do the work that needed to be done, even when the personalities he had to interact with were difficult. I am reminded of a play shown at BYU during this time period. The Enemy of the People is a play about a man who becomes aware that the company he works for produces by-products which are hazardous to the community. (A play ahead of it’s time!) This man is emotionally and morally torn. Should he quit the company in protest against it policies, or should he stay and try to reform them from within? The protagonist stays, working hard to help the community and the corporation, in spite of his misgivings about the direction of others within the company. I think of my father as similar to this man.

Mother was not always easy to live with either. She was quite a complicated person. But she and Dad seemed to get along fine. It took me a couple of decades to figure out how Dad managed this. Then, Mom one day said that Dad always amazed and pleased her because whenever she asked him to do something, he did it immediately. I, as a child and teenager had put off doing what she asked as long as possible, and got reminded over and over about it. Once I tried my dad’s method, life with Mother got much easier. She had a finite list of things which needed doing, and was able to relax as was I, once I had done them. Dad, however, had figured this out years before.

Mother loved to travel and was probably the major impetuous in their trips to Europe. Their first trip was in 1949 when Marian was married, but Bob was 17, Dave was 13 and I was 4. We each stayed with family friends who had kids our age. Still, that was pretty adventurous of them to up and leave their children behind even though they knew we’d be safe and having great fun.

Dad twice was able to obtain positions with the University of Maryland teaching servicemen in Europe. The first time was from the summer of 1952 to the summer of 1953. We lived in Stuttgart, Munich, and Wiesbaden, Germany. Dad went first in June while Bob and Dave worked at the University of Colorado. Mom and I went to Franklin, Idaho to stay with my grandfather George Comish and other aunts and uncles on the farms outside of Franklin. Bob married Janet Romney in August in Salt Lake, then the rest of us took off for Europe to join Dad.

That was an amazing year for all of us. We traveled together whenever we could. Dave attended U.S. military high schools in Heidelberg and Munich, and I attended U.S. military elementary schools where they were available. They even took me to the Dauchau concentration camp. I’m very glad they did, but I’m not sure I would have been that far-sighted to know that it was a place I should go, even at the age of seven.

The next trip to Europe with the University of Maryland, was in 1968-69. My aunt Geneve and I were able to join them in Harrogate, England. But they had already lived that year in Naples, Italy and Madrid, Spain. When, Dad saw all the luggage we had both brought, he immediately told us to send several bags back home each. There would be no way we could travel around with all of that luggage. As I was mostly taking U-Rail trains or military tours on my own, I soon realized the wisdom of having but one small bag.

The folks drove across the country to New York one summer and then took everyone they could cram into the car on the way back from Marian’s. We were a little concerned since Dad had had a heart attack about a year or so before, and he always did all the driving – and long days of it usually. But he did fine. I’m glad I wasn’t with them on that drive (it was partly to take Lynn back to BYU, I think). We had to hand them item after item to stuff around them after they got in. How they managed to get out for rest stops I don’t know.

Dad and Mom were hard workers always. They almost never hired help; they always did it themselves. When the trim on the house in Provo needed painting, they did it themselves. They did all the planting and gardening at any house in which they lived. Dad woke early every morning and often did preparations for work while still at home.

The folks had both come from basically farming families, so many of the more refined social graces were learned as adults. While they were in Colorado, one specific couple taught them much about entertaining, etc. which would be invaluable to them at BYU, where entertaining the faculty was a necessary part of the job. Mom became very good at this and was a major support to Dad in his position. I always still saw the farm girl in her, and her great devotion to her roots in Idaho; but those in Provo often commented on her gracious elegance.

However, one should not suppose that because the folks were hardworking that they had no sense of humor. They actually loved to laugh and took quite well to being teased. I have heard stories about Mother playing April Fools jokes on Dad. Our nieces and nephews sometimes were surprised at the way Dave and I would sometimes tease our folks, I expect because they did not themselves feel they had a joking relationship with their grandparents. I will never forget one year at Christmas when Jan had sent bathrobes to Mom, Dad and myself. (I would have probably been a teenager.) Jan had apparently mislabeled the boxes and the robe intended for me had been marked for Dad. It was a zip down the front number in a kind of velour, but Dad very gamely put it on over whatever he was wearing while Mom and I went into absolute hysterics because he looked so funny, he was so unembarrassed to try on something which so obviously wasn’t meant for him, and yet he was so unabashed by our laughter. Sometimes we would receive items for Christmas which we could not identify. We would then have great fun thinking up silly explanations for what these items might really be.

Both the folks loved classical music, especially opera, and always listened on Saturdays to the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on the radio. When we were in Europe they took me to see a number of these in big elegant opera houses. At the intermissions Dad would tell me to run from one side of the marble hall to the other. I seem to remember that he ran with me. (This was on the uncarpeted 3^rd floor where people ate bag lunches, not the fancy lower floors.) He knew I needed the physical activity to either wake up, or get the wiggles out.

Both the folks were also very conservative with money. As a teenager, all the vacations I can remember were attached to business trips Dad had to make, to which the rest of the family would drive with him. Luxury was not a part of these people’s lives; we stayed in dormitory rooms, or very cheap hotels. But I think we children all learned the value of money, and learned not to be extravagant.

Dad was always a humble man, never self-aggrandizing, pretentious, or boastful. He could speak well, and planned his speeches at BYU or at Church carefully. He was confident of his abilities as a teacher first, and then as an administrator; but he knew that his good qualities would be recognized by others and he didn’t need to point them out himself. Some people who have held high positions need to keep reminding others of this, or would hesitate to engage in activities which might be considered “lowering” themselves after their elevation to high position. But Dad wanted to return to teaching when he retired from administrative work, and he was able to teach for a few years in Europe and at BYU.

As the folks got older, when I would visit, I was struck by how gentle and caring the folks were with each other. Each would take me aside and say, “I’m worried about your father”, or “I’m worried about your mother”. They had been a caring couple all their lives and this was true to the end. Mom and Dad had their own bedroom, but after I left home, Dad would sometimes use my bedroom if he couldn’t sleep with Mom. (She had a snoring problem, which she passed on to me.) So, he would get up and go into the other bedroom. He died in that room after a heart attack in his sleep. Mom, would say later, “If only I’d been there, maybe I could have done something.” But I think he knew it might be coming. He had worked hard on the book “50 Glorious Years” to have it ready by their 50^th wedding anniversary August 26, 1975.

When I was given his copy of the Crockett book with all the information about our Crockett relatives, I noted that he had marked in it the death dates of all the relatives of his which had died since the publishing of the book. There was a definite pattern for the men in the family to die of heart attacks, in their sleep, at the age of 72. (He must have known it was coming it was coming to him too, as he had already suffered two heart attacks before this.)