March 18, 2015
This has been a whirlwind week. Our family lost our beloved husband, dad and
grandpa early Tuesday morning. My dad
returned to his Heavenly Father less than a month after his last sibling, his next
older sister and my Aunt Larue, passed away.
My aunt was more than 6 years older than my dad. I expected to have more time with him. But I am happy that my Dad was able to see
his dad again for the first time in 56 years, and his mom again for the first
time in 33 years. Oh how they loved
their boy Jim. What a happy reunion they
must be having as he joins his family in the Spirit World. And likewise, what great loss we feel on this
side of the veil. I almost cannot bear the fact that my dad has already moved
on. As I awake early each morning, the
weight of his loss returns to me. Many
times each day, I seek solace from my Heavenly Father in prayer and have felt
His peace knowing of His plan of salvation. Our family has felt the love and
prayers of many family and friends. But I’ve
never had something hurt so much.
Brothers and sisters, I am so grateful for the gospel. For the Savior’s atonement, for our
opportunity to eternally progress, and to return to our Heavenly Father and our
loved ones. So many sweet friends and
neighbors have come by to visit my mom and my sisters and me, to express
condolences, to bring too much food and to provide loving support. We are so grateful for our dear friends and
relatives. Although I knew I would be a
wreck, I felt I needed to stand before you and share some memories of my
wonderful father.
Childhood
My dad wasn’t always a perfect little boy. He shared with us some tales of his childhood
in Star Valley, Wyoming. Since my dad
was the youngest (by several years), he was pretty spoiled by his two older
sisters Gayle and LaRue. He was king of
the farm. His parents granted him access
to a 22 rifle when he was just a young kid, maybe 8 or 9 years old. We know today that this is probably too young
of an age for kids to run around unsupervised with guns. Well, he ended up using that gun to shoot a
hole in the family piano.
As far as I know, he stayed mostly out of trouble with that gun until he was a teenager and wanted
to improve his skills at hitting moving targets by shooting at mailboxes while
riding in a car. Dad had already become
a very good shot, so he definitely did some mailbox damage. Shortly after his practice session, Star
Valley’s postmaster showed up at the house and told my dad that he knew it was
him shooting mail boxes and that defacing mailboxes is a federal offense. He told him that it better not happen
again. And it didn’t.
My dad loved fishing. For someone who always has to be doing
something, it’s hard to believe how much he would enjoy just sitting there and
casting. He took us fishing several
times in our tri-haul red boat on Canyon Ferry reservoir in Montana. But I found it boring to just sit there with
a pole, so I asked if I could drive the boat.
He thought that was a great idea so he told me the zig zag pattern to
follow and I would drive as we trolled back and forth. I would practice making minute course
corrections while my dad and the others caught fish. Then he would show me how to clean the fish. Believe it or not, there was a time when I
was pretty good at cleaning fish!
Back when my dad was 18 years old, he thought that the poor
efficiency of catching only one fish at a time could be improved upon. Since he worked at the rock quarry, he knew where the dynamite was
stored. He borrowed half a stick one day
and took it fishing. I don’t know how
he got it lit and in the water, but the dynamite went off, causing a nice shock
wave in the water and killing several fish, which floated to the surface. He was able to collect a nice haul very
quickly. Somehow, the Fish and Game
learned about this incident and also knew it was my dad. He got reprimanded and he lost his job at the
quarry.
Missionary work
My dad was definitely outgoing and assertive. He would share his knowledge of the gospel
with anyone who would listen just in passing conversation, because it was so
much of his life. This happened often
when he was walking his “Pooh” dog because she attracts lots of attention. He had conversations with everyone in the
neighborhood. He was so well known by
that “Pooh dog” that his nick name was “The mayor of Top of the World.” Dad even shared the gospel with the delivery
guy from Staples who was later baptized.
I hope you had a chance to see his picture in the photo slide show.
My dad especially loved sharing his experience of teaching
the gospel to a young recently married couple while serving on his mission in
Australia. They were the Ward family. Kevin Ward happened to be standing outside their
house when my dad and his companion walked up, and he agreed to have them come
back and talk with himself and his wife about religion even though he claimed
he was atheist at the time. Somehow, Kevin
had come across a picture of the Salt Lake Temple in a magazine he was reading
before he met the missionaries. He kept
that picture and told himself that someday he wanted to go into that beautiful
building even before he knew what it was.
While being taught by the missionaries, he learned the meaning of
temples and that the building pictured in his magazine was the Salt Lake
Temple. Kevin and his wife knew the
gospel was true and were baptized and remained faithful latter-day saints their
entire lives. Kevin would write my dad a
letter each year on the anniversary of his baptism, thanking him for sharing
the gospel with them. And although it
would take 60 years to come to fruition, Kevin Ward, his children and their
spouses, and some of his grandchildren all came to Salt Lake City and went
through the Salt Lake Temple with my Dad.
Kevin’s wife had already passed away by then. I got to meet this wonderful family at my parents’
house when they visited just a few short years ago. Kevin Ward passed away shortly after that
visit to Salt Lake. I am sure that he
was one of the first people to greet my dad on the other side!
D&C 18:15 And if it so be that you should labor all your
days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto
me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!
My dad was SO proud of his grandson missionaries. He would read their emails almost weekly to
his church buddies and always tell me how proud he was of my boys. Here is a snippet of a letter he wrote to one
of my sons on his mission:
I can tell you your Grandpa Hillyard (Me) just has to be
very proud of all of you. Elder you will
always remember your days in Poland.
Mostly good times and a few you would like to forget.
A few weeks ago I received an email from a woman in
Australia (Jennie Ward) thanking me for the extra time I put in to baptize her
Mother and Father when I was there over fifty years ago on my Mission. She said she has five sons, one who was a
returned missionary, one on a mission and one with Heavely Father on his
mission and two who were looking forward to their missions.
I cried most of the day with the joy that brought to me. And
you too are having that opportunity to make a wonderful difference in people’s
lives.
Thank you Darin for being the fine young man (Elder) you
are!
Polish wife? Remember
it would be a long trip to see your in-laws. And who would tend the
children? Can you think how mad and
upset the girls at BYU would be with you?
I’m still trying to recover enough golf balls to make up for
those we lost at Cedar Hills Golf course.
I should have just enough when you return to try it again.
I am still the Ward Clerk and do enjoy working with our
Bishopric. I have been forwarding your
letters to our Bishop
I’ve seen miracles happen when one asks with a sincere heart
for the truthfulness of the Gospel.
Love You, Darin. If
there is anything I can be of service to my fine Grandson please let me know.
Army
My dad took ROTC in college so he was able to join the army
as a Lieutenant. He was such a good shot
with his gun and such a great baseball player, that his commanding officers
would allow him to skip typical drills such as calisthenics and marching so that
he could practice with his teams more.
This nearly got him into trouble one time when he was supposed to march
a group of soldiers on display for a visiting officer and he had no idea how to
do it! He didn’t even know the names for
the different types of commands. The visitor
was almost ready to boot Jim right out of the army until Dad’s commanding
officer explained that Dad’s skill set helped their team win baseball games.
The salesman
My dad taught me the term “8 x 10 glossy”. Don’t be an “8 x 10 glossy”, he would say. A person that is an 8x10 glossy is all talk
and show without the substance and doing to back it up. In other words, just like an actual 8x10 picture. Even so, my dad was a very good salesman,
which he started doing when he joined IBM.
My dad was hired at IBM as a salesman in 1963, the same year
he married my mom. He was quickly
transferred to Sherman Texas, which was a very small town with few businesses
in need of automation products of the day.
So dad got creative and developed a proposal to sell the new IBM
selectric typewriters to school districts, but not for use in the back office
where only a few typewriters would be needed – instead to be used in the
classrooms where typing was currently taught on the old manual typewriters. My dad demonstrated that kids who learn to
type on electric typewriters develop better technique for faster typing than
those who have to learn by pounding away on the old manual-style
typewriter. He closed some large school
district sales, immediately qualifying for IBM’s elite 100% club. His success was so unexpected in that sleepy
little area, that he was asked to train other sales groups on his techniques
and he rose through the ranks of IBM until he ventured off on his own.
He helped start the Salt Lake office of Rolm corporation in
the 80s. Rolm was a telecommunications
company, which, ironically, was later acquired by IBM. At the time, the LDS Church was looking at
replacing the phone systems in its Church office building as well as in temples
and at BYU. My dad presented the options
Rolm had to offer to members of the presiding bishopric including their staff, and
got to meet with then Elder Gordon B. Hinckley.
There were some heated discussions about the claims that Dad made about
what the phone system could do. When Elder Hinckley was leaving the office
building one afternoon, he turned to a friend of my dad’s and said “I like that
Hillyard. I think we can trust him. Let’s get the Rolm system.”
Deer Hunting
For many consecutive years, my Dad, my Uncle Vern, Mel Dearden,
Gary Cahoon, their sons, and other friends would go deer hunting up East Canyon
on the beautiful property owned by the Deardens. Oh, how I loved these hunting trips in that
beautiful country. We always stayed at
the same camp site by a pond fed by fresh water. Then we’d get up really early
so we could drive the old Blazer way up on top of a ridge. Some years the weather was wet and cold. That Blazer almost slid off the side of a
mountain one muddy year. Other years it
would snow. Other years (my favorite
ones) the Aspen tree leaves would be golden yellow and rustling in the breeze. The smell of the spruce, aspen, sage was
wonderful to a pre-allergies kid. Dad
would always bring cans of Vienna sausage which we would heat up while sitting
at some lookout. Did you know that
Vienna sausages that are boiled in their own can over a tiny campfire while
hunting with your dad actually taste wonderful!
I bought some a few years ago to reminisce. Either they stopped making them taste as
good, or the proper environment really makes a difference. As we’d sit on a high ridge waiting for the
sun to come up, my dad would point out deer moving in the brush a mile
away. I never could see anything.
Dad let me drive the Blazer when we were tooling around off road
even though I wasn’t 16 yet. One time we
had the tailgate down and were going over some bumps on the road. We had a few Humphreys, Dearens, and Cahoon
boys standing on the tailgate looking out over the top of the Blazer. As we crested a pretty big bump, the tailgate
bounced up and down a little bit, shattering the glass that was rolled down
inside. My dad didn’t even bat an
eye. He knew I learned not to go over
bumps that fast again with the tailgate down, and that was that. I don’t think he ever got mad at me for
anything. It’s actually a good thing
that I have my Mom around to provide some semblance of discipline!
Another year my sister Karen came with us on the hunt. We were asleep in our tents when it started
snowing pretty hard. It snowed and
snowed until it partially caved in our tent.
I stayed in my bag while Karen and my Dad went out in the storm and
fixed the tent. I just recently admitted
to Karen that I wasn’t really asleep. I
just didn’t want to go out in the cold.
Each deer hunt seemed to become a little grander than the
last one. My Uncle Vern bought horses
and started bringing them every year.
Then he got a 30 man army tent with a barrel stove and stove pipe that
went all the way up out the top of the ten.
Somehow, we set that monstrosity up!
Then early each morning, my sweet uncle would get up at 4am, start the
fire in that stove, and by 5am the entire tent (which only had about 5 of us in
there) would be 72 degrees. Talk about
the lap of luxury!
The horses weren’t all good news, though. My dad used to think they weren’t quite as
smart as Wyoming horses. One year as he
was riding through some thick trees, he had mounted his gun scabbard so that
the stock of the gun was facing forward on the left side of the horse. He figured that would allow him to have a
quicker draw if he saw something get startled.
Unfortunately, as the horse was passing between two narrow trees, the
gun scabbard went on one side of the tree while my dad and his horse went on
the other side. The sudden resistance to
forward progress startled the horse, and it jumped forward, snapping the stock
right off his rifle – to make matters worse, he had brought his most prized
Weatherby 7mm magnum. My dad wasn’t even
angry, though. He used his backup gun, a
30-06 (he had plenty of backups). When
we got home, he ordered another stock and repaired the rifle himself.
Flying
My dad had his private pilot’s license and he used to fly
his plane all over the place. I’ll bet
he has owned 8 or 9 different planes in his lifetime. My dad especially loved flying us to and from
Star Valley when I was a kid. Flying
would shrink the 4 hour drive down to just a 1 hour of flight. My dad would let me sit in the co-pilot seat
and try to maintain direction and altitude.
Since he knew the route so well, he’d just tell me what landmark to
shoot for next. My Uncle Ronny would
pick us up from the tiny Afton airport in his olive green suburban (which he
would then loan us for the duration of our stay), then we’d have fun shooting,
fishing, riding my uncles’ horses, riding his four wheeler, and just enjoying
beautiful Star Valley.
My senior year in high school I decided to take flying
lessons as well. I had no idea how
expensive of a hobby flying actually was!
I remember going out to runway “16 Left” with my instructor and telling
clearance we were ready to take off (it was a south wind that day). As we were waiting for clearance, this hot
shot airplane (a Piper Arrow III – turbocharged) pulled up onto the ramp left
of us (potentially giving him the opportunity to pull out onto the runway ahead
of us and take off with slightly less runway).
I was thinking, “that guy better not try to butt in front of us,” and
then when the pilot got on the radio to request clearance, I realized it was my
dad just going out for a little flight!
He of course let us go first. He
just felt he didn’t need as much runway to take off since he had the
turbo. My practice flights were in a
piper tomahawk and I thought I was pretty good at landing and taking off, so my
dad let me have a shot landing the Arrow one day. I swear that plane lands at least 20 MPH
faster than the little Tomahawk. My dad
took over just before we touched down.
Perhaps he was remembering the deer hunting experience with the smashed
tailgate window in the Blazer.
I’d like to share one fun “close call” flying experience my
dad had with my brother-in-law Bob. They
were doing touch-and-goes in Rexburg where Bob and Karen lived at the time, in
one of dad’s many airplanes. The plane
was the V-tail Beech Bonanza. Right
after touching down, my dad grabbed the flaps lever and retracted the flaps,
but then immediately realized that he had grabbed the landing gear lever and
retracted the landing gear instead (an unfortunate design decision on that
plane is that both levers are right there together). Since the plane was already coasting down the
runway, there was weight on the gear which kept them from actually retracting
and collapsing the plane onto the concrete.
Since the gear didn’t immediately collapse, my dad decided to punch the
throttle and take back off again. Then
they could properly extend the gear before attempting another landing. Unfortunately, after taking back off, they found
that they could not get a green “gear down” light. Even with manual override the lights did not
indicate. Rexburg didn’t have an active
emergency staff at the airport, so Bob and dad had to fly to Twin Falls I
think, notifying the tower of their predicament with the landing gear. The airport prepped the emergency response
team with the fire trucks and foam trucks and then gave Dad and Bob the
clearance to land on the runway and hope that the gear would stay extended. The landing was perfect and the gear held. A
local mechanic even wired the gear so it would stay down for the flight home.
Going to Star Valley
Our family would love going to Star Valley for a few days each
summer with grandpa and grandma. This has
been the highlight of my boys’ summer vacations. Grandpa would always have a new toy to try
out, such as a new BB gun, a sling shot, a new bow and arrow, new targets, a
new pitching practice target, new inflatable rafts for floating the salt river,
or new specially made golf clubs that were just the right size for little
boys.
My parents cabin is right on hole #6 on one of the Star
Valley Ranch golf courses and the boys would constantly ask grandpa to take
them out to go golfing. He would fire up
the two golf carts (which always needed some sort of maintenance to get
working) and take them and Pooh dog out to play hole number 6, then number 7,
then 8 in the morning. Since these
weren’t exactly official rounds of golf, the Marshall would sometimes come
along and shoo them off the course. But
they’d just go right back later that day.
Grandpa also had a game that we would play on the practice green. It was called “pitch and putt” contest. We’d
create two-man teams to try to level the playing field against grandpa, giving
him the weakest player. Then we’d have
to modify the rules further, saying that a shot must be accepted from each
player on the team (in other words, grandpa can’t just make all the shots). Somehow, grandpa’s team still always managed
to win. Grandpa would always say about
golf, “you drive for show, but you putt for dough.”
Another favorite Wyoming activity was to drive up into the
mountains and take all the guns for target practice. We’d have shotguns, clay pigeons, rifles, and
hand guns. Grandpa always amazed us with
his pinpoint accuracy (which was somewhat frustrating to me during head-to-head
competitions). One 22 semi-auto handgun
of my dad’s has a really light hair trigger.
Grandpa would remind us of how light the trigger was and to put the
safety on until you’re ready to shoot.
When one of my kids shot the dirt right in front of us inadvertently,
grandpa gave a surprised look, and that was it.
It kind of reminded me of when I was a kid and I shot the dirt right in
front of my own foot with the same gun!
At least we remembered the rule not to aim at anything we didn’t want to
shoot.
(Remember fat back)
The mechanic
Many people in my parents’ ward probably knew my dad as the
small engine mechanic. He loved fixing
things, weed eaters, lawn mowers, snow blowers, leaf blowers, etc. He has so much patience that he’ll spend
hours and hours fixing a $100 weed eater rather than just buying a new one. If he discovered that a neighbor needed a
small motorized tool, he would go to D.I. with my mom to the “yard” where non-functional
power tools were located. He’d find
something that he thought would be just right then go home and make it
work. He loved doing things for people
in this way. Although I did not inherit
his near-infinite patience (with people or power tools), I cherish my dad
teaching me how to get my hands dirty fixing something – of not being afraid to
figure out how something works. He
showed me how to change my own oil, my brake pads, or the window glass in the
tailgate of a blazer. The two of us even
replaced the motor in the old Sea Ray boat when it failed. Up until last Tuesday, whenever I fixed
something that I thought required some degree of cleverness, I would call my
dad to tell him of my accomplishment, and he’d give me a verbal pat on the back.
However, I must admit that when my weed eater stops working,
I throw it away and buy another.
Closing summary
In closing, I want to come back to our annual deer
hunt. Each year as the deer hunt was
over and we’d packed up and were getting ready to drive home, I would be so sad
that the wonderful camping trip had come to a close, especially when I was
younger, perhaps 10 years old. I
remember sitting in the Blazer and telling myself, “wait a second. . . we’ll be
right back at this camp site next year.
It’ll be OK.” That feeling of sorrow and longing would abate just a
little. Well, the feeling I had then doesn’t
light a candle to the feeling of sorrow
and longing that I feel now. I keep
reminding myself that just as when I was 10 years old, I know that we’ll be
back together again. The reunion will be
joyous. But the difference is I didn’t
get a chance to say good bye. Every day
I have felt: If only I could have a little more time with my dad to tell him I
love him just once more and have him know that I really mean it.
In October 2008 General Conference, President Monson shared
this advice:
Send that note to the friend you’ve been neglecting; give
your child a hug; give your parents a hug; say “I love you” more; always
express your thanks. Never let a problem to be solved become more important
than a person to be loved. Friends move away, children grow up, loved ones pass
on. It’s so easy to take others for granted, until that day when they’re gone
from our lives and we are left with feelings of “what if” and “if only.” The author
Harriet Beecher Stowe said, “The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words
left unsaid and deeds left undone.”
I’m so thankful that my wife Janelle encouraged each of my
boys and me to write letters of gratitude to my parents and her parents this
last Christmas. I would like to share
some of those cute notes with you:
Notes from boys
If there was one scripture I would pick to describe my dad,
I would use Alma 53:20. Please indulge
my slight wording change to this scripture as it describes my dad so well:
Alma 53:20 And Jim always acted like a young man, and he was
exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity;
but behold, this was not all—he was a man who was true at all times in
whatsoever thing he was entrusted.
Dad, words do not express the pain and loss I feel right
now. I will miss you, my dear old
Dad! I love you with all my heart and
look forward to the day we will be reunited.
I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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