52 Week Challenge: Question 3

52 Week Challenge: Question 3

What memories do you have of your father (his name, birthplace, birthdate, parents, and so on...)

KRISTIN:

Yet another tricky question for me. My memories of my dad are few. I was not raised by him and our relationship has been somewhat distant over the years. But I will say that in the last year my dad is coming through like a champ. He contacts me (and Stacey and Kelley) at least weekly if not more. Mainly through texting...but also phone calls and the mail. We are talking more than ever and it has been really nice. I am grateful to be learning more about him than I ever have before and it seems that he wants to be known more than he ever has before. I accept it and am grateful. Things that I know about my dad: he served a mission to Argentina, is very funny, hates the snow, loves to read, loves antiques, has very eclectic taste in music, loves sports, and worries about his daughters.

I have a few memories of him prior to my parents divorce... I remember running out to his brown truck when he would come home from work and being thrown up in the air. I remember eating cinnamon bears with him and watching Charlie's Angels. I remember riding horses with him. I remember the day we left him and moved out. I remember him coming to see us on several Christmases. I remember visiting him one weekend with my sisters and grandparents. I saw him a few times when he came to town when I was in college. He has always sent money on our birthdays and for Christmas. He also attended our wedding and paid for our hotel for our honeymoon in Vegas. :) When I was older and still lived in Utah I saw him a bit more often. But I haven't seen him in years. Tyler and I are thinking about taking a trip to Las Vegas (that is where he lives) with the kids maybe some time this year.

Because I wasn't raised by him I am changing the question around and I have asked him to tell me what his childhood was like. I was very close to his parents so I am curious to see what they were like as parents since I very rarely observed them in that role. They were absolutely fantastic grandparents!!

My grandparents tried for a long time to have children. Both of them were in their late 30's when my Grandma finally got pregnant. My dad was an only child for part of his life. Then his parents adopted a boy named Clayton. I think Clayton was around six or seven when he was adopted. They also had a foster son named Bobby whom they loved very much. Bobby drowned in a canal on a visit with his biological mother. It was devastating to them. Growing up there was always a tri-fold picture frame on an end table in their living room of my dad, Bobby, and Clayton. I know that my grandparents loved their boys and were grateful for them.

My grandparents lived on a farm in Provo, Utah off of Geneva Road out by Utah Lake. Their farm was one of my very favorite places in all the world. There were horses, cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, dogs, a huge vegetable garden, many out buildings, and an irrigation ditch that was always running with water. My sisters and I loved to play pioneer on their farm. It was our very favorite thing to do at their house.

Here is what my dad said:

My life growing up with Mom and Dad. When I was a child I really thought I had it bad. Too much work and not enough play. As I look back over the years of my youth, boy was I ever wrong. My childhood and teenage years were as perfect and as wonderful as a boy could have. I always knew that I was loved and wanted and that our home was a safe and protected place. Mom and Dad were strict and there were rules to follow: work hard and do your best, be kind to others, be honest, and live a clean moral life, obey to the best of your ability the commandments of God.

(I think this might have been a picture celebrating their engagement.)

My Mom and Dad always took an active part in my upbringing. We lived on a farm in Provo, Utah and besides farming Dad had a full-time job in the construction industry. Mom was a full-time wife, mother, and homemaker and she had a part-time job at an elementary school as a cook. I don't know how they ever found the time to do all they did every day. Farm work, occupations, rearing two boys, working at very responsible church positions. On top of that Dad was my little league baseball coach, my boy scout leader, and teacher of all things boy related. How to hunt, fish, trap, ride a horse, hit a baseball, drive a truck, and much more.

Mom had the worst job because she was the only lady in the house. (I never had any sisters.) Even when I was young she would jokingly say, "How can I ever get anything done in a house full of men?" But she accomplished miracles. We all pitched in and worked together. She taught me house keeping skills which I grudgingly learned, but became very useful in later years. Cooking, cleaning, dusting, dish washing etc. I still hate dusting to this day.

Besides being a wonderful homemaker and mother, Mom had many other skills, talents, and interests. Mom was a people person and loved entertaining and had many many friends that she loved to entertain in our home. People loved my mom and gravitated to her. Her laughter could light up a room and she had a crazy sense of humor. People always had fun at our house and her good home cooked food was legendary. Mom loved her church work and she served God by serving other people. Her positions included Primary President, Relief Society President, YWMIA President and she taught classes in all of the ward and stake organizations. My mom loved to sing and had a beautiful clear soprano voice. She sang in the ward and stake choirs with my dad. Besides church work and homemaking Mom had many and diverse interests. She was the 4H Leader for four of the clubs that I participated in. She was a leader in the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers. She enjoyed politics and served as a judge of elections and our home was an election polling place for many primary and general elections. Many of Mom's other interests included: reading, travel, history, cooking, family (especially the grandchildren). She and my dad loved sports and never missed any of my ball games. Mom loved the BYU Cougars. We watched the games on TV and before TV we would gather around the radio and listen to the Cougar games as a family.

I guess you could say that our family was a middle income rural family. We always had good food, a warm home, and tons of love and respects for each other. We were sometimes poor in worldly goods, but we had each other and that was what counted. I loved my Mom and Dad and I am proud of them and so thankful to be their son. Even though many years have gone by since Mom and Dad have passed on I still find myself reaching for the telephone to call them for advice or to share a bit of news with them. Mom and Dad live in my heart and continue to help and guide my life. I know that we will all be together again some day. Love, Dad


TYLER:

(Tyler's dad passed away from a heart attack when we were dating. Tyler's parents divorced while he was on his mission and Tyler was living with his dad when we met. I have several memories of his dad and they are hilarious and very much cherished. Although he passed away before we were married and our children were born, our children know their Grandpa Johnson well and his memory is very much alive in all of our hearts and minds.)

My father, Larry Luvern Johnson, was born in Duluth, Minnesota, on October 7^th to Alice Luella Johnson and Engner Axel Harris Johnson.  His mother was a school teacher and his father was a railroad worker.  He had an older brother Ed and a younger brother named Rick.  He grew up in a home out in the woods of Minnesota.  It sometimes doubled as a hunting lodge throughout the hunting seasons.  I remember a story he used to tell me about a pet deer they had while growing up.  He truly loved his time there.  At around 14 he, his brothers and his mom moved to Port Orford, Oregon.

He served a full-time mission in Oslo, Norway.  Both his father and mother spoke a little Norwegian but he had grandparents that were all fluent in it.  He really loved the people there and always had such amazing stories about living there and being in such a beautiful place.

He began his undergraduate at the University of Oregon in Architecture but then changed to Political Science and he transferred to BYU and went on to complete his Masters.

He worked for a bit in Provo utilizing his Political Science degree but was offered a job with IBM selling what was then new technology in giant server computers.  In his training for this job he learned many of the programming languages which gave him a whole new career in computer science.  He worked in the programming industry for many years and ended up becoming a professor of computer science at Utah Technical College (UTC).  It changed names from UTC to Utah Valley Community College to Utah Valley State College to the now known Utah Valley University.  He loved teaching.

My dad also loved to garden and landscape.  He truly loved working outside in our yard.  Whether it was the many rose bushes that we had in the front yard, the fruit trees in back, the blackberry bushes, or the enormous garden.

He loved to go camping.  I have so many memories as a kid being up in the woods all over in California and Utah camping with my dad.  We always had this awesome canvas tent that was huge or so it seemed and then when we got older we had a tent trailer for our camp outs.  It was always his dream to be a camp host at a campground near enough to home that would allow us to camp all summer long and still allow him to work and commute.  We did spend one amazing summer up in Yellowstone.  My dad took a position as a night auditor with the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel.  This allowed us to have an all access pass to the entire park.  Dad would work through the night and then most weekdays and every weekend that entire summer we explored every inch of Yellowstone.  During that summer we lived just outside the park in a mobile home in Gardner, Montana.  It was a very memorable summer and such a great opportunity.  Part of the reason for this trip was for dad to share his love for the National Parks.  In one of his summers during his college years he spent the summer as an official park ranger in Teton National Forest.  He had such fond memories of that time and always wanted us kids to know the beauty and splendor of those national treasures.

Dad was a voracious reader.  Going to the library with him was always fun and interesting.  Trying to guess the size of the stack he would be bringing home was always a surprise.  Dependent upon the size of the books his stack would be a minimum of 12 inches tall.  Sometimes it would be multiples of that stack.  The crazy part is that he would always read through that stack of books in under his two week checkout time.

Dad never forgot about his degree in Political Science. He was always very involved politically in the community. He even ran for a city council position in Orem and had the whole family involved in his campaign.

Dad also loved to sing.  He joined a barbershop choir and also was involved in a quartet as well.  He sang bass and was always taking us kids along to sing in the ward choir.  Both mom and dad were very active in the ward choirs throughout my childhood.

Tyler and his Dad

Out of all the things my dad taught me over the years I think that his example of hard work was the most important. He was a very dedicated provider for our family between his job and what we did at home; he was always showing me by his amazing example the importance of work and getting the job done right the first time. I love my dad and his amazing example to me and I will always cherish the last year that he and I had together.