A Shot in the Arm

John Byrd Robertson

O. Dunc Robertson

the Millegan Country

 O.D. Robertson would have probably spent all his life working jobs that involved manual labor and the outdoors if his brother hadn't shot him in the arm.

According to my Dad, O.D. Robertson (known as Dunc) and his brother, John Byrd Robertson (known as Byrd) were hunting in the Millegan country with a few other men.  Byrd's rifle discharged into Dunc's arm. The wound was a bad one.  Doctors wanted to amputate Dunc's arm, but there was a doctor in Great Falls who treated Dunc and didn't insist on amputating the arm.

For over a year, bone fragments worked their way out of the wounded arm.  Finally, the arm did heal.  It seemed like Dunc would never be able to return to being a wrangler, rancher, miner, or all the other jobs he did.  So Dunc took a business course in accounting.  He became an accountant and worked for a store owner in Marysville.

After working for the store for about a year, the owner committed suicide.  To Dunc's mind, if that was what working inside and in a store did to you, it was for the birds.  He went back to all his previous occupations. While one arm was an inch or so shorter than the other one, he seemed to function without impairment.

Dad related that later Dunc and Byrd went on another hunting trip.  Byrd was holding his rifle in the same unsafe position that had caused the first gun accident.   My grandfather had a few choice words for Byrd's edification.  They arrived back from that hunting trip unscathed.

On Teaching How to Use a Window

We have two young ladies staying in an apartment near our house.  One young lady is from a big city and the other is from the South.  One of the most challenging aspects of living in Montana for them is learning how to use a window.

On a warm day in May I got a frantic phone call, "It's 80 degrees in here, and I can't seem to turn on the central air."

"We don't have central air.  Do you think you could open a window?"

"Oh, I didn't think of that."

Then a couple of weeks ago I walked by the apartment at 7:00 am, temperature 53 degrees, to hear the air conditioner running.  I thought it might be a fluke, but the next day at the same temperature the same air conditioner was running.  So we had a talk.

We talked about air currents. We talked about air pressure. We talked about using a fan.  We discussed opening two windows when you are using a fan so the air you are drawing in has a window that it can flow out.  We talked about how a person living in a second story could need an air conditioner for an hour or so if the day has been warm and they have been gone - until the outside air cools down.

I never appreciated before that most Montanans have a special skill set: cooling off rooms without benefit of air conditioners.  Wilbur and I purchased an air conditioner for days when we are choked by forest fire smoke.   Choked means we have so much smoke we can't see the hill a quarter of a mile away.  Terrible smoke means we can't open a window.  Paying for air conditioners running when the temperature is 50 degrees does not make us happy.

The Freight Outfit

Great grandfather Oscar Andrew Robertson came to Montana July 9, 1864, according to an application he filled out for the Society of Montana Pioneers, dated June 2, 1910.  His place of arrival was Virginia City.  The application tells us he departed for Montana from Carroll County, Missouri and came via Nebraska City, Fort Bridger, Soda Springs, and Gibson's Ferry.

O.A. Robertson

According to Oscar Andrew Robertson's application, he mined for thirty years and as of 1910 had stock on the Smith.  There probably wasn't room on the application to tell us of two other occupations:  meat market owner and freighter.  O.A. owned the main street meat market for a while.  For a time when my grandfather was young, O.A. also ran a mule team to the rail head in Corrinn, Utah and operated a freighting outfit.

Pic of O.A.'s meat market.  O.A.'s Main Street Meat Market is in between Watson Bros. & J.H. Curtis.  The Historical Society told me this picture is a a big Shriner's event.  O.A. bought a copy because it showed his business.

According to my dad, the employees of the meat market.

Once when my Dad saw a painting of a freighting company (painter Selzer possibly) with a diamond R brand, he was convinced that picture had to be of his grandfather's outfit.  Diamond R was his brand, or at least O.D. Robertson's brand. The painting Dad saw featured Mount Helena in the background.

As far as the brand goes, O.D.  had his wife, Maude Brodock Robertson register her own brand, the lazy BK.  According to Dad, the diamond R was only O.D.'s brand if he used it on the animal's jaw.  This was an inhumane way to brand a horse, so they used my grandma's lazy BK on all the horses.  Then, they could brand the horses on the hip instead of the jaw.

Dad also told me that O.D. Robertson played hookie from school one time and was messing around with the freight outfit.  O.D. ended up with a broken leg.  I vaguely remember Dad telling me that O.A. Robertson had a 20 mule team outfit.  That seems like a LOT of livestock, and I am doubting my memory here.

I seem to remember too, that the freight company was involved in an Indian fight on an island in the Missouri on a trip north of Helena once.

O.A. Robertson mainly considered himself a miner and rancher, but he was an entrepreneur with the meat market and his freighting company.

Remedies for a Bad Day

When I’m having a bad day:

• I remind myself that I have five fabulous children with loads of goodness, talent, parenting skills, intelligence, and accomplishments.  But this really doesn’t help much because parents never really know if children turn out well in spite of them or because of them.
• I take a hot bath.  I wash my hair and make weird hairdos with the shampoo suds. Then I pretend I’m sporting the weirdest of my shampoo hairdos in the Miss America contest.  I try to imagine the judges’ faces as they see me strut across the stage in an evening gown with my weird hairdo.
• I draw mustaches on the models in my clothing catalogs and black out their teeth.  I have even been known to draw thighs on them that qualify for liposuction.
• I ponder the question:  Would it REALLY be so bad if a 58 year old mother of five adult children decided to start sucking her thumb?
• I remind myself that in 1777 John Adams didn’t think George Washington was much of a general.   Adams was wrong. 
• I remind myself that I’m unique.  I may not be important, wanted, or liked, but no one can argue that I’m not an original.
• I put all the Hershey bars underneath a heavy bucket in the basement, for the sake of my thighs and my digestion.
• I plan a canoe trip down the Green River.
• I write notes on toilet paper to people I'm mad at and  flush them.
• I chant over and over, “This too shall pass.  This too shall pass.”  And I shout “Hurray!” when it does.

A Skeleton in the Closet

My First Cousin Once Removed (FCOR) is really getting into family history.  Since I last had an Ancestry.com account, amazing research tools have become available.  My FCOR brought to my attention to an ancient skeleton in the closet of one of my ancestors.  The skeleton came to light during her research.

This ancestor had a child out of wedlock. She and her father sued for seduction and got child support. In those days wives and children were considered "chattels" or property of the head of household.  So the ancestor sued for "seduction" and her father sued for "trespass for seduction." I didn't realize that men were held accountable for children out of wedlock in the old days as they are now. The interesting thing about the case is that Abraham Lincoln was the attorney for our ancestor plaintiffs.

Here is the link to my pedigree chart on Familysearch, the church website: https://familysearch.org/. It only takes a minute to register for your own account.  Type in your name and me as your Mom and you will be hooked up to all the information I have entered.  Using logic and the information I have given you about the attorney, see if you can figure out which ancestor was represented by Lincoln.

DON'T post the ancestor's name if you comment.  After all, how would any of us like a serious mistake posted on a blog for the whole world to see?  If you figure it out, send me an email.

Grocery Store Donations

I used to have grocery stores in my town.  Within the last three years the stores’ missions have changed. Providing groceries to customers has taken second place to collecting donations from customers.  It’s a rare day that a customer (or should I say donor?) can buy so much as a pack of gum without the clerk at the checkout asking,   “Would you like to donate to the National Society for Rattlesnake Abuse Prevention?”

Don’t think that a person will slyly avoid contributing by clicking “no” to the same soliciting question displayed on the credit card key pad.  Those questions all read something like this, “Do you want to donate to the Association for Better Bananas ?”   As soon as you click “no,” the clerk directly asks, “Do you want to donate……?”  I think the key pad must be there only to collect the fingerprints of reluctant contributors.

There is diabolical reasoning involved in this method of solicitation.  Why I should care if the person behind me in the checkout line thinks I’m a heartless cheapskate, I don’t know.  But saying, “No” within that person’s hearing is much more embarrassing than clicking “no” on a key pad.  Naturally, the peer pressure aspect never occurred to the grocery store solicitors.  This additional discomfiture is all coincidence.

In my view, the idea that the grocery store is a first-rate place to gather donations is fundamentally flawed.  After spending $100 on groceries that cost me $80 the week before, who wants to part with more cash?  I need a drink of water, a round of relaxation breathing, and a cold pack for my aching head.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, I was a raised by a woman who didn’t know the meaning of the following phrases: back down, peer pressure, go along with the crowd. Whenever I find myself in a situation laced with the faintest scent of any of those phrases, my inner thirteen-year-old revolts, “See if you can make me do it!” 

By virtue of my inner thirteen-year-old, the grocery stores no longer twist my arm. Now, my stock phrase at the checkout counter is, “My policy is that I never donate to anything over the checkout counter.”  There is something about having a personal policy that makes it much less heartless and cheap when declining to donate.

The old saying is that: turn about is fair play.  I think it fair that I should indulge in some entertaining reciprocity at the store.  My latest plan involves finding the manager and within hearing of several customers stating, “I am collecting for the orphaned song bird fund.  Would your store like to donate?”   Or maybe next time I’m solicited at the check stand I’ll ask the clerk if she will donate to the customer recovery fund.  This is a fund for individuals to recover the all funds they have donated every time they enter the grocery store.  The customers need to recover the money so that they can afford to buy groceries.  

Detective Work

Hermione and I decided to take a trip to my Dad's birthplace: The once thriving metropolis of Pompey's Pillar.  First, we visited the Pompey's Pillar National Landmark itself to view Captain Clark's signature. I am speaking of Captain Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The landmark has a beautiful visitor's center with information from Clark's journey in the areas:videos, displays, pictures and a gift shop.  It was well worth seeing. Pompey's Pillar, the rock outcropping, is along the Yellowstone River where you can also view snakes and mosquitoes, so bring mosquito repellent can be handy in the morning or evening.  I loved the  views of the amazing Yellowstone.  I am going to go there again.

It so happens that the first government financed irrigation project, Huntley Project was a few miles up the road from Pompey's Pillar. Huntley Project allowed farmers to begin to make a go of it in the Pompey's Pillar/Huntley area. Before the irrigation project, many settlers tried to farm, but most of them went bust.  We visited the Huntley museum and talked with the curator, Melissa Koch.  She gave a us a platt and showed us where the homestead was located on the platt.  She also gave us information about the original town and how homesteading worked for the settlers.

In 1913 O.D. Robertson and Maude Brodock Robertson homesteaded Farm Unit I, sections 22 and 27, almost adjacent to the Pompey's Pillar monument itself and fairly close to the river, although not bordering on it.  Fly Creek and the railroad ran through their farm.

Captain Clark's signature

.

Years ago, I found pictures O.D. Robertson had of the Huntley project when it was being built.  The back of the pictures state, "Working on Huntley Canal Project OD Robertson."  Some say "Huntley Canal Project Contract, O.D. Robertson."   These leads me to surmise that my grandpa, who hired out himself and his horses worked on that project.

Back of this picture says, " Working on Huntley Canal Project Contract O.D. Robertson"
This is one of three pictures of Huntley Project that O.D. Robertson had.

Interestingly, some of the lands opened up to homesteading by the irrigation project was Indian Land.  The Indians usually didn't farm the land themselves, but settlers had to pay charges to them. O. D. Robertson and Maude's land title states that they had to pay Indian charges.

O.D. and Maude had a dairy farm that seems to have been successful if O.D.'s tally book tracking the amount of milk his cows produced daily is anything to go by.  Every morning he would load his milk onto the train bound for Billings.

The most impressive building in Pompey's Pillar

The most impressive girl in Pompey's Pillar

Pompeys Pillar - looks like an old livery stable

While Pompey's Pillar now has only some trailers, a few houses, a company that sells honey, and a Post Office, this was not always true.  Melissa Koch informed me that in 1916 the First National Bank of Pompey's Pillar was established.  From 1912 to 1925 the town was booming.  There were two general stores, two implement dealers, two restaurants, a meat market, a real estate office, garage, blacksmith, hotel, pool hall with barber shop, newspaper, livery stable, two lumber yards, a school, two churches, an elevator, two section houses, a department with three telegraphers every 24 hours, daily passenger service both ways (I assume this means the train) and a town policeman. There was also a steamboat that ferried people and supplies up and down the Yellowstone. This post includes pictures of all the buildings in the "downtown" now.

Pompey's Pillar Post Office

Sadly, after losing their son, Teddy to a mysterious and lingering illness and almost losing their daughter, Winifred, and younger son, Sid, O.D. and Maude sold the farm.  They thought the water was bad and making their children sick.  Melissa Koch confirmed that the water in the area is not the best.

For their son, Teddy's funeral, Maude and O.D. rode the train from Pompey's Pillar to Great Falls, where Robert Theodore Robertson is buried in the old part of the cemetery behind the mall.  Great Falls was close to both O.D.'s father's ranch and Maude's family's ranch.  Both ranches were near Millegan, Montana.

Some things don't change.  The need to be with our family during a time of heartbreak is one of those things.

Teddy's death was published in the Billings' and Great Falls' newspapers. I found the clippings when I looked through old letters.  I also discovered a letter from a minister offering his services to conduct the funeral.  Maude and O.D. took him up on the offer.  At this time, neither Maude or O.D. had any religious leanings.  I can't imagine enduring the death of my baby without my religion to comfort me and help me with my perspective.  This must have been an awful time for both Maude and O.D.

While genealogy can be lots of paperwork with names, dates, and places, it can also involved some fascinating information brought to light by detective work.  After we've lived a few years and experienced a few things, we know the aching hearts and turmoil attached to hard experiences.  The names, dates, and personal experiences work together to lead us to empathize with those who went before us.

Expertise that Counts

I am limited in many respects, but you have to admit that I chose a great Husband and Dad for my kids.

Blogging but Uneasy

Occasionally, I look at the statistics tracking viewers of both my blogs.  I'm gratified to learn that during a week there may be three or four other people, besides my family, who slog through my thought provoking (or maybe just provoking) meanderings.  I am uneasy, though, when I see some of the web addresses that have entered my blog.

Why any site specializing in porn would enter my website is beyond me.  The idea makes me succumb to an attack of acute nausea. Often, the site names that have entered my blog clue me in to their low life purposes. I'm speculating that some of the scumbags associated with the Internet sewer must write programs that randomly enter blogs.      

Once, however, I clicked an innocuous sounding link that was a purveyor of garbage.  As the computer loaded the pictures, I noticed that the women's faces had idiotic expressions. The loading progressed and I noticed clothes did not appear on shoulders or upper chests, I crashed my computer before the upper body nudity became apparent and decided never to clink on any link that entered my blog, no matter what the name.

So the moral of the story is, never to click on link that has entered my blog, no matter how innocent sounding the name may be.  I just wish there was a way to block seedy sites from entering my blog at all.  Probably they are trying to drum up business, but they won't get mine. Self respect is hard enough to continually maintain.  Why would I sell it to predators who only goal is to take my money and wreck my life?

My Television Education

I’m getting smarter all the time thanks to television.  Only this week I learned that aliens from space are the most likely source of Leonardo da Vinci’s genius.  For two years da Vinci didn’t write much in his journal, but he did mention a cave he visited.  So the only rational conclusion is that da Vinci held conclaves in the cave with aliens from space during those two years. The aliens showed him the future and introduced him to revolutionary ideas.  Either the aliens taught da Vinci everything he knew, or they downloaded the information into his brain.  The History Channel experts are not clear on this point.   

According to the History Channel’s sources, who propound their hypotheses with certainty as well as a straight face, the aliens imparted this information for the purpose of speeding up mankind’s technological progression.  I learn something new every day.

While da Vinci’s dealings with space aliens are interesting, they play second fiddle to present-day adventures with Sasquatch.  One day as I tried to find something worth watching on my 100 channels of satellite TV, I stumbled on a program with modern-day Sasquatch hunters – in Kansas.  Nothing is more likely than Sasquatch hiding out in Kansas. This theory explains completely why hunters can never find the elusive creature in Washington, Oregon, or British Columbia.  Sasquatch has been concealing himself in Kansas all along.

In a discussion of educational television, I would not want to overlook an enlightening program that deals with a geologist on his search for the Holy Grail in the United States.  My elementary school teachers completely misled me.  They taught me in 6^th grade that the Holy Grail was a myth created during the middle ages.  To hear the geologist tell it, there is nothing more certain than the existence of a Holy Grail which the Knights Templar decided to hide in Minnesota or was it Maine?  After the Last Supper, I would have thought that the individuals providing the upper room would have washed all the dishes, making it hard to figure out who used which grail.  It just goes to show how logical thinking has no place in science or television.

After my television learning experiences, I wait with bated breath to view the next bit of television science or history.  What next will I learn?  The Eiffel Tower was in reality designed to be intergalactic starship?  Neanderthals govern a province in Upper Canada?  Atlantis is alive and well and located under an ice sheet at the North Pole?  Anything is possible in a television education.

Memorial Day

Today Wilbur and I trotted down to the nursery to get plants to adorn his rock collection.  Next, we went to the Memorial Day Parade and ceremony in East Helena.  Then I went to the Veteran's Cemetery to put lilacs on my parents' graves. I kicked myself for not bringing a camera.  The Veteran's cemetery was an awesome sight with American flags on every grave.

 After I visited the Veteran's Cemetery, I went to Forestvale Cemetery to decorate my grandparent's graves. Joe Spoja's grave is behind my grandparent's grave.  Joe is my brother-in-law who died when his Coast Guard helicopter was knocked out of the sky by a huge wave as the crew tried to rescue a man from a fishing boat in the middle of a terrific storm.  Someone had taken the time to walk the entire cemetery and put flags on all the veteran's graves.  That must have been time consuming, so bless whoever took the time to do it.

When I was a child, my Dad, younger sister and I would pick lilacs and bring them to our family member's graves at Forestvale.  I really missed my Dad today.

Wilbur's Rock Collection

While I buzzed down to Billings to have fun with Hermione, Wilbur played with his rock collection.  His rock collection is different than mine.  I keep my rock collection in a shoe box in my closet.  I inherited some of my collection from my Dad, and I bought one or two of my rocks from a store.

Wilbur started his collection last year, using a 9000 lb Telehandler Grade-All forklift. Wilbur's friend, Dave, allowed Wilbur to collect some rocks off his land. Until yesterday,Wilbur kept his collection in a pile next to his shop.

 When collecting rocks, the type of rock is immaterial to Wilbur.  All of his rocks are granite, which is fine with him.  Size and shape are the focus of Wilbur's rock collection.  Yesterday, Wilbur arranged his collection for display.  He is going to let me choose shrubs to accent his display.  When we are done with Wilbur's display, the area around his shop will look far superior to the yard surrounding our home.  It doesn't make sense to me that the shop yard will be so much superior to the yard surrounding our house. Still, I support anything that improves the look of our property.

Wilbur's rock collection, side view

Willbur's rock collection - front view

The Collector

The apple tree in bloom - landscaping I can handle.

To the Rescue

The home where I grew up on Third Street was only a stone's throw away from a rock quarry.  I remember my Mom telling the tale that when some blasting took place at the quarry, a large rock went through the roof of a house in the neighborhood and narrowly missed a baby in a playpen.  I don't know if this story is truth or rumor.

Mom's experience with the quarry was quite different than blasting.  Mom had very acute senses.  Her sense of hearing and smell seemed way above average to me. She told me that one day she was hanging clothes on the line.  As she hung out the clothes she heard a cry of "Help! help!"  She stopped what she was doing and followed the sound to the rock quarry.  She found a boy who had fallen from the rim of the quarry and broken his leg.  She splinted the leg and got the young man help.

We were not allowed to play in the quarry.  I never played on the high rims of it, and I never mentioned playing in the quarry. I take the fifth on my other activities concerning the quarry.

 When I was about thirteen, the neighborhood children and I heard through the grapevine that the fire department would fill part of the quarry with water in the winter to make an ice skating rink if we pulled weeds.  In the fall we pulled weeds, and that winter we had an ice skating rink in the quarry which we enjoyed immensely.

Art and Me

For the past five years I have taken my Webelos Cub Scouts to the Clay Arts Guild.  Every year the boys surpass me in using the pottery wheel, handbuilding, and glazing.  It is humbling to be over fifty and produce work well below the norm for ten year old boys.  After five years going to the Clay Arts Guild, I have finally produced something recognizable.  The glazing could be better, but I can see a penguin in the work of art.  I'm telling you that it's a penguin in case I happen to be the only person in the universe that can see that it's a penguin.

This years cubs.  The middle boy's Mom says he has taken to posing this way in all his pictures.  She says she could just strangle him.  I think he is trying to be funny.

On Giving Service

Today we had a discussion in Sunday school on sharing our goods and helping others. Per usual, we had the same old comments stating that we should give money to panhandlers.  If the panhandlers use the money for booze or drugs, then they are the people sinning. We can have a clean conscience knowing we were charitable.  We also had the same old comments about not judging.

Probably I make Scrooge look like chairman of the Red Cross, but earlier in the lesson we read a scripture about stewardship.  I thought we were stewards over the property we acquire.  So if we are wise stewards, we give our money to anyone who asks without using our brains or having any information about the situation we are attempting to improve with cash?  I kept my mouth shut for as long as I could, and then noted aloud that we were operating under the assumption that giving people things was helping them.  I'm not sure that we always are helping them.

I'm not convinced that to buzz over and clean an able bodied person's filthy house anytime the person requests free maid service is a wonderful act for them or us.  I question whether encouraging panhandling by passing out cash is really helping the panhandler or the community.  I especially question this knowing that panhandlers often conduct this activity while working for a panhandler "pimp," so to speak, who gets a large percentage of the earnings.  Someone once told me that God gave us our brains for a reason.  He gave us our hearts for a reason too.  We need both of these assets. I believe we are stewards over the material things we have been given. I know we need to be kind, share, and serve.  But I wonder if our mindless, inappropriate help will be judged any better that our selfish withholding of our material goods.

The Truck

One day, Wilbur’s staid 2002 Ford 550 Dump truck decided it was tired of being ordinary.  Maybe we weren’t giving this large, red truck enough attention.  Although, we made numerous repairs, (including two new transmissions) changed oil, and kept it filled with fuel among other things, this mundane maintenance did not fulfill the truck’s need to feel important.   To remedy this situation it caught on fire in front of Mike’s house.  Mike is our job foreman.

After the fire, the truck needed massive repairs, to the tune of $12,000.  Like the robot struck by lightening in the movie Short Circuit, the fire changed our sober, dependable truck’s personality.  It became mischievous and quixotic.  Wilbur and employees would drive the truck to a destination, only to have it refuse to start when they wanted to leave.  The worst trick our truck pulled was to stall in the MacDonald’s drive through and refuse to start again for about a half hour.  For some reason, MacDonald’s did not find this amusing.  The drive in management wondered if they could push the truck out of the way.   Pushing a 1 ½ ton truck loaded with 8000 lbs out of the way…..  Where is Superman when you need him?

For four or five months, the truck was in and out of the repair shop like a yo yo.  One part after another was replaced to no avail.  We paid bill after bill. Finally a team of mechanics attacked the problem and the truck pronounced healed.  So far, the truck starts when it’s supposed to, and we have received another bill.  What I am wondering is, would it make sense to pay the bill with a check that bounces? 

Quilting Class

I finally finished my quilt that I made for my quilting class.  Photographs never seem to do a quilt justice.  The quilt, especially the colors, look better in person.

Realistically Speaking

I attended a baby shower yesterday and learned that realism is now the trend in baby shower games.

Evidently, subjects a new mother might discuss with the nurse following delivery should now be incorporated into a party game.  According to the game leader, this was OK because we were being realistic.  Heck, I thought, if we’re being realistic why not dispense with the party games altogether?  The person in charge of games could borrow a movie from an institution that educates nurses and we could watch a delivery.  There’s realism for you.

I should have seen the new realism trend coming I suppose.  Several years ago I attended a baby shower where the hostess made a game of putting canned baby food into a diaper and having guests try to guess the kind of baby food ( e.g. peas, spinach etc.)  by smelling it.

Sorry for my weak stomach, but I thought the game was disgusting and not at all what I want to think about when I get together with friends.  I also thought it was low class.

My upbringing had limitations, but I am glad to be able to say that I learned that many times there is a difference between a subject a person might discuss in a one-to-one conversation with a trusted confidant and something that should be brought up before a public group, many of them strangers. 

Strong Views

Not too long ago, I discovered some letters my Dad wrote my Mom during WWII.  One of the letters written by my father, normally a quiet man, surprised me. My Dad had a very placid demeanor,  but he held strong political beliefs.  He was firm about what he expected.  All he had to do was look at my siblings and I, and we would toe the line.  You didn't want to tell him he was wrong about anything. But I guess no one likes to be told he is wrong. Mostly Dad was a Democrat.  His father's family fought for the South in the Civil War.  That side of the family was the most vocal politically, so I guess it was natural he would adopt those politics.  Although, Dad would be appalled at the position the Democrats take on social issues if he were alive now.  I remember Dad commenting that people living together was  disgusting.  He said, "I don't know why women let men get away with that."

Being of a calm disposition, Dad let a lot of things people said or did slide by. Since he didn't join the church until I was nine, I don't know if he had a more tolerant view of people's conduct that my Mom did, or if he just wasn't vocal about his opinions. He didn't believe in getting riled up unless it was something he thought was important.

He knew who he was and what he stood for.  Below is a transcript of a letter he wrote Mom from the Molucca Islands, July 24, 1945.  In the letter he expressed himself forcefully about something he felt strongly about:

     "Went to the show tonight and afterward to the club and had a couple of cokes.  Didn't care much for the show.  It was "Laddie Son of Lassie" and was in technicolor but it was to far fetched to suit me.
     In the combat camera picture they showed us some scenes from some of the German Concentration Camps.  Things to horrible to even think about.  I never dreamed that anyone could fall to such a low level of degradation.  I don't like to think about such depravity.
     Guess this isn't much of a letter sweetheart but such things rather get me down.  All I can say is that they should be shown no leniency whatever and after knowing what bestiality they are capable of if we ever let them get in a position to repeat their atrocities we will deserve anything that happens to us."

Here's to keeping the commandments. I want to be worth all the sacrifices Dad and other men and women made, so we could be free.

Article that Made Sense to Me

Balancing Truth and Tolerance, Dallin H. Oaks, Ensign, February 2013, p. 24.