Allen Clarence Black

Allen Clarence Black, 85, of Orem, Utah, passed away August 16, 2000, in Hesperia, California. He is survived by three brothers Lew, Henderson, Nevada; Lyle, Ogden, Utah; Joe, Quartzsite, Arizona; a sister Dorothy Mae Millet, Moroni, Utah; children Robert G., St. George, Utah; Sandra Witt (Alvin), Orem, Utah; A. Hardy (Cleone), Hesperia, California; Kerry C. (Eileen), Orem, Utah; Eva Lynn Garlick (Barry), Fallbrook, California; Krystal Lynne Pexton, Leavenworth, Kansas; 50 grandchildren; 27 great-grandchildren and 1 great-great-grandchild. Allen was born in Glendale, Utah, July 28, 1915. He married Genevieve Hardy, April 24, 1941. He lovingly cared for her until her recent passing on June 4, 2000. Allen and Genevieve lived for 30 years in Henderson, Nevada where he worked as an operating and maintenance engineer for Stauffer Chemical Company, Manganese Ore, and the Las Vegas Flamingo Hilton Hotel. He retired and moved to Orem, Utah in 1974. He was a active member of the LDS Church. Services will be held August 24, 2000, 1 p.m. at the LDS Chapel, 1867 Washington Field Rd. Washington, Utah. Viewing will begin at 11 a.m. Interment will be in the St. George Cemetery.

Allen Clarence Black, 85, of Orem, Utah, passed away August 16, 2000, in Hesperia, California. He is survived by three brothers Lew, Henderson, Nevada; Lyle, Ogden, Utah; Joe, Quartzsite, Arizona; a sister Dorothy Mae Millet, Moroni, Utah; children Robert G., St. George, Utah; Sandra Witt (Alvin), Orem, Utah; A. Hardy (Cleone), Hesperia, California; Kerry C. (Eileen), Orem, Utah; Eva Lynn Garlick (Barry), Fallbrook, California; Krystal Lynne Pexton, Leavenworth, Kansas; 50 grandchildren; 27 great-grandchildren and 1 great-great-grandchild. Allen was born in Glendale, Utah, July 28, 1915. He married Genevieve Hardy, April 24, 1941. He lovingly cared for her until her recent passing on June 4, 2000. Allen and Genevieve lived for 30 years in Henderson, Nevada where he worked as an operating and maintenance engineer for Stauffer Chemical Company, Manganese Ore, and the Las Vegas Flamingo Hilton Hotel. He retired and moved to Orem, Utah in 1974. He was a active member of the LDS Church. Services will be held August 24, 2000, 1 p.m. at the LDS Chapel, 1867 Washington Field Rd. Washington, Utah. Viewing will begin at 11 a.m. Interment will be in the St. George Cemetery.

Given at his funeral Aug 2000 By his daughter Eva Lynn Black Garlick Allen Clarence Black was born July 28, 1915, at Glendale, Utah. He was the fourth of 10 children of Andrew Clarence Black and Sarah Matilda Biddlecome. Shortly after Dad was born, his parents, Clarence and Sarah, moved across the creek to the west side of Glendale. They had bought a log cabin which they set it up on a little piece of ground near the flour mill. Dad’s grandfather, Isaac Edwin Black owned and operated the flour mill and Clarence had moved there so he could be close to his father and help him work a lot at night and in the heavy season when the mill was running 24 hours a day. It was here that Dad spent the first five years of his life. Dad described his father and mother as very loving and considerate people whom he enjoyed a great deal. His next brother wasn't born until he was six years old so he had quite a bit of attention. He also enjoyed his grandmother and grandfather a great deal. As a small boy he went to the mill often and was able to get well acquainted with his Grandfather Black. Quoting from Dad’s History: My folks set their little hand hewn log house on the lot when I was about eight or ten days old. The house consisted of one log room about 14 X 16 feet with a 10 X 16 "lean to" on it. My earliest memory was at the time my Dad was putting the roof on this house. A log was dropped in the process making a loud noise and creating quite a commotion. I remember laying on the bed and looking up at the sky. I asked my mother about it some years later and she said I would have been about a month old. Every time I returned to that house I recalled that incident and the way the light looked up through the roof. When we moved across the creek by the mill we were not close to any other families with children. This meant that the four of us, Nellie, George, Mamie and I spent our time together. Everywhere we went it seemed like it was all four of us and we were very close to each other. Dad had fond and vivid memories of three summers his family spent on Cedar Mountain in Liddy’s Canyon while his father was tending sheep camps. It was a very pleasant place and he could be with his father. There was a small creek where they could swim and play and a large meadow next to the house. They picked berries of all sorts, choke cherries and crab apples to make jam and jelly and his mother saw to it that they had a garden with carrots, potatoes and peas. Two stories from his history illustrate character traits that were innate even at that young age. While we were there at Liddy's Canyon, we kids would sometimes go with my dad up to move the sheep camps. I being the smallest at about three years old, would ride on the saddle in front of him on the horse. But George and Nellie and Mamie would have to ride on the pack horse. One day when we were on the way back . . ., we ran into some porcupines in the meadow, they had been getting into our garden and causing trouble. While my dad stopped to kill the porcupines, the pack horse with the other kids went on out of the meadow and up to the gate. There the horses stopped to wait for the gate to be opened and the old "bally" horse probably went to sleep. As my dad came up to open the gate, instead of setting me down on the ground he just set me over on the old horse's rump. I grabbed the hair on the horse's tail and it excited him. I guess in his sleep he thought a bobcat cat had gotten him and he jumped! He jumped and kicked up just as high as he could kick up about three times, trying to shake me loose but I clung tight! It seemed to me that I was up in the air a hundred feet. It looked so far down I wasn't about to let go. He didn't shake me loose but he dumped George and Nellie and Mamie all off on the ground and they began to cry. Early that next Spring, I was out in our yard in Glendale playing when I saw some boys come down from town on the other side of the creek carrying a sack with something in it. As they got down along side the water's edge they untied the sack and opened it to put two or three pretty good sized rocks in it. Then they tied the sack up again and threw it out into the creek. . . . I saw the sack as it began to float along down the creek. I could see something bobbing up and down in it like it was alive. So I ran down stream a little way and off the bank and through the brush and to the edge of the creek. I went out into the stream about up to my waist. The water was running fairly swift and really cold. I grabbed the sack, dragged it out and opened it. It was an old cat and four little kittens! The kittens were drowned by that time but the old cat had managed to keep her head up above the water. I was really excited as I ran back up with the kitty. About that time Mother had discovered I was missing and had come looking for me. She saw me coming up the bank all wet with the kitty. I was really in trouble for leaving the yard and going into the creek, but Mother being soft hearted, let me keep the old cat. Again in the summer the family was up in the canyon. When Fall came that year it was time for us to move from the mountain back to town so that Nellie and Mamie and George could go to school. (George was just starting school that year.) As we packed up all our things, getting ready to go, it stormed really bad. We had to put the tarp wagon cover on to protect our belongings and keep them as dry as possible. I forgot about my old cat until we were ready to go. I went hunting her but couldn't find her any place. I hunted and hunted. We decided that maybe the coyotes or something had gotten her so we left without her. I felt pretty tough about it. On the way down it stormed again and the wagon got stuck in the mud a time or two. When we finally got home it was quite late and still raining. It seemed later to me than it probably was because it was cloudy. When we finally got things unloaded in the house, it was cold and we were all wet. After we got a fire going we felt pretty good. When I said my prayers that night, I asked my Father in Heaven if he wouldn't please save my old cat. About a week after we had moved home, the old cat showed up with four new kittens. She had carried them eight or ten miles and across the creek twice to get there. We could only guess as to whether she only started with four or had lost some on the way, but I was mighty glad to see her. The next summer, Clarence did some farming out on the Glendale bench and raised lots of potatoes and corn. The potatoes were dug and stored in a pit near the corral. That winter Dad’s job was to keep his mother’s potato bucket in the kitchen full as he brought in wood and coal. One afternoon he neglected his job until his mother insisted that he go up to the pit even in the dark. It was almost half a block to the pit where he would lift the lid and jump down in to fill the bucket. He didn’t like getting down in the dark hole especially when it was dark outside so he ran as fast as he could but when he stooped over to jerk the lid up, it was already off. And when he dropped his bucket down and jumped in he lit straddle of someone’s neck. Dad was small enough to be shoved right out as the intruder jumped up and ran. Dad hit the ground running in a panic back to the house where he breathlessly reported his fright in the potato pit. When Clarence went to investigate it didn’t take much to identify his neighbor, Billy Brimhall’s abandoned bucket full of potatoes. Clarence informed Sarah that he was going to Billy’s with potatoes and Dad ran along behind to see what would happen. Billy Brimhall was without work and it was looking very grim for his family. When Billy saw Grandpa’s imposing frame through the little glass window in the door he wouldn’t answer the knock. So Grandpa instructed Dad to just keep knocking at the front door while he went around to the kitchen door to scare Billy. When Grandpa walked right in with no knock, a terrified Billy stuttered, “Clarence, what are you going to do to me?” Grandpa sized up the situation and made arrangements for the Brimhalls to share their milk and get some things from the Bishop until they could provide for themselves. Dad said: So instead of my dad jumping all over him he was kind and considerate. That was quite a lesson to me. I was pretty proud of my dad. Even though I was only seven years old, I understood awfully well what the circumstances were. There were other lessons to be learned and many were from Dad’s Grandfather and Grandmother. The years I lived in Glendale were quite a spiritual time in my life. My Grandfather Black was a member of the bishopric and he was quite an inspiration to me. I remember going to Sunday School and Sacrament Meeting and things of that kind with my grandfather and I remember the little things that he told me along the way. I gained an awful lot of respect for him. I think that was a help to me all my life. I also remember the things that he taught me about the mill and how he handled tools and the way he did things. He was a real inspiration to me and I was really thankful for him. I hope some day that I can found be worthy of meeting him again. He said of his grandmother — My Grandmother Black was quite a small boned women. I think 108 pounds was the most she ever weighed in her life. She was quite a tall person and had very long arms and was very slender. She wasn't a person to show any outward affection to amount to anything but she was a person that showed her love by her service. She was a real joy to me and I learned to love her a great deal for the many things she did for me and the little things that she told me. I guess the only real affection that I ever saw her demonstrate was when my father would come home. Quite often he'd go down to meet his mother. Invariably, when he'd go to meet her he'd just reach down and pick her up in his arms. She'd put her arms around his neck and hug him a little bit and then he'd stand her down. They'd walk off together into the house. I thought that was about the keenest thing that I'd ever seen to see my daddy do that to my grandma. But she was a real choice person in my life. Dad’s next brother, Lew, was born just before he turned six years old. He said: I thought that having a new baby in the house was the nicest thing that ever happened to us, besides being a real novelty. Mother was beginning to think her family was complete with just the four of us and she was very happy when Lew was born. It was a whole lot better than Christmas. The family was not complete, in fact, they were only halfway. Wilford, Lyle, Dorothy Mae, Olive, and Joe were still to come. Dad said: I was always partial to my little brothers and sisters because after Lew was born my mother's health was poor. I put in lots of time with her and I naturally helped take care of the little kids. When I had to go away and be gone working I got real homesick for the little kids. I've always loved them. The Spring that Dad was seven the family moved from across the creek in Glendale to across the street from the school house.. A fall flood has washed out the swinging bridge and the foot bridge that replaced it worried Grandpa. Living right across the street from the school would solve the problem. Dad describes moving from a seven year old boy’s perspective. This was a real experience to me. The property had a large granary, a great big barn, a chicken coup and some other things, as well as a small three room frame house on it. . .The kitchen had an old "Home Comfort" cook stove, with a little chrome plate and a big reservoir on the back of it to heat water in. It was really a fancy thing. In the granary there was a corn sheller and two or three scythes. Upstairs there was an old 4590 rifle and a reloading outfit for it and several other things. These were real items to a seven year old boy! The barn was a big barn. It was built out of hewn timbers. . .That was a real piece of work, I thought. Moving that early in the Spring, the drive going up to the house from the main street was clay and it was really muddy. The team and wagon with the furniture on it kept stopping to rest because the mud was so deep. Boy, it was really a lark moving into the house, especially at that age. We had a large lawn with a big black locust tree and a willow tree right out in front of the house. On the east side of the house there was a sweet apple tree. Behind the house there was quite an apple orchard a Maiden Blush apple, a crab apple tree, several Josie Blue apples and some striped red apples. We really were fortunate. We owned a little better than half the block with our lot and we had . . . an alfalfa patch large enough to support a milk cow and a team of horses. We had a big garden spot where we could raise all of our own garden and most of our potatoes and things of that kind. That was good for me because George and I were given the responsibility, of keeping weeds out of the garden, doing watering and looking after things. The church house in Glendale was also right across the street from their home. That made it really handy and easy to be involved in all the activities. Dad was baptized with five or six other children in Hidden Lake two miles above town. He attended Primary and said: Primary at Glendale was quite an inspiration to me. Quite a lot of the time Marion Cox and I would be the only boys at Primary and sometimes he wasn't there. But at any rate I remember lots of things that I learned. Most of all, I remember the singing. It was the same way with Sunday School. Sunday School meant a lot to me. I was really proud and happy when I was old enough to be ordained a Deacon and be able to pass the Sacrament. Dad started school in the same school house that his father had attended. But after his first four years the community decided the wood floor with only one entrance was a fire hazard and a new one was constructed. This was such a novelty to Dad that even at nine years of age he was involved and remembered every detail. When the timber was brought down from Stout’s sawmill in the canyon above, he and George had the job of piling it and “stickin’ it up’ so that the boards would dry straight. They also turned the adobe bricks that were laid in the sun to harden. He described being able to help as a thrilling experience. Dad’s mechanical genius was developing as well. Quoting: During this time, I not only learned in school but I had the privilege of learning many other things. I still used to go over and spend some time in the flour mill with my grandfather. Practically all the machinery, other than the roller, was home made equipment. I learned a lot of things about [the mill]. I really appreciated that. Years afterward, when I went out to work on jobs, I remembered those things and it was quite an asset to me. I also learned to look after livestock and to ride horses. One winter, my father got the parts from two or three old wagons. With them he rebuilt the wagon wheels and made himself a real good wagon. I helped with that and I can remember how we shrank the tires on and the different things that we did. It didn't seem like much at the time, but it was all a learning process. I remembered those things because I was interested in that type of work. I never was a very good reader so books didn't mean much to me. But the things that I did with my hands and had the opportunity to help with were the things that I remembered. By the time Dad started high school, he and George had been involved in more that one financial endeavor, raising goats and “doggie” lambs, killing porcupines for 25¢ a piece, hiring out as farm hands and trapping bobcats and coyotes. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas that year, he and Ellis Anderson got a job working in Chris Lavangar’s little coal mine for 10¢ a carload. They were riding the school bus to and from the high school in Orderville but he and Ellis figured they could get an extra hour of work every evening if they got up early and rode their horses down through the snow and tied them up in a barn by the school. That way they didn’t have to wait for the bus after school. The coal car that they filled and pulled out with their horses would hold a thousand pounds and some nights if they worked pretty hard they could make 40 or 45 cents a piece. That February, Clarence was up in the night waiting on Sarah who was expecting Aunt Olive and he caught the house on fire. They managed to get their belongings out but the house burned down. The family moved into the uninsulated granary for temporary housing and were settled just in time for the new baby. Rather than rebuild when spring came, Clarence listened to his father and moved his family to Short Creek. There he could acquire some homestead property and be a spiritual strength to his brother, Dad’s Uncle Edwin, who was being influenced by the polygamist families that had moved in. The year Dad was fifteen, Dorothy Mae, Lyle, Lew and Wilford all contracted scarlatina and it settled in their kidneys. Wilford was the first to get sick and he died within a month of kidney failure. Sarah went to Hurricane with Wilford and the other children were taken to the Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City. Dad felt terrible watching his little 7 year old brother suffer when he was so sick. When Wilford died in the afternoon, Sarah had him dressed for burial and brought him home in a casket, arriving after dark with plans to bury him by noon the next day. He had not been expected to live so his grave site had been staked out in the Short Creek cemetery. Dad said he felt helpless to do anything so he got up early and took the shovel and had the grave all dug out before three men discovered him when they came to take care of it. By the time Dad was a Priest, polygamy was dividing the community of Short Creek. Dad avoided the conflict and hurt by working away from home herding sheep or working highway construction. Working took priority over school and Dad did not graduate from high school. He was home when the church authorities called the polygamists to repentance and excommunicated those who would not sustain the General Authorities. This was a hard time and Dad found it easier not to go to church because of the hard feelings and so began a period of inactivity. When Dad was 25, his parents had been living in St. George a few years and he and his father and George had a sawmill operation in Stout’s Canyon.. It was 1940 and he was attending the WPA dances in St. George where he met Genevieve Hardy. Dad had done some business with Genevieve’s father, Gile Hardy and admired his honesty, work ethic and blacksmith skill. Not long after he met mother he began to notice her two children, Sandra, 2½ yrs. old and Bob 7yrs. old. The following is a family legend that Dad loved to tell: One day I had been down to Gile's blacksmith shop that was just a block from our place. At the same time, Sandra had come to our place. She'd been around our place and she'd been quite friendly with me. This time I met her and she had something in her hands waving it around. I said, "Sandra, what have you got?" "Oh, it's my pants. They're wet so I took 'em off," she said as she skipped along for home. Dad described their courtship this way: Genevieve and I went together for a dozen times or so and I noticed that she took good care of her family. When I picked her up for the dances I watched the instructions she gave to Bob and how he should take care of Sandra. I could see how dear her children were to her and that appealed to me because I knew the love I had had for my little brothers and sisters. So one night when I took her home from the dance we were talking and she had told me some of the things that had happened in her life and some of the disappointments and some of the things that she expected out of life. I thought it over and it hit me that those were the same things that I wanted. So I ask her if she would marry me. She said she'd think it over for a few days and she wanted to know what had brought that on. So I told her about how I felt about her attitude toward her little kids. I told her those little ones were really an attraction to me and I'd like to share that with her. It went on for a few days and I went to see her and she said. "Well, when can we go?" So we talked it over and decided that Monday night I would pick her up and we'd go over to Flagstaff and get married. We'd get married there without blood tests and other formalities. So we did. Dad and Mother were married April 24, 1941. Within a short time Dad quit the saw mill operation and he began working construction in Las Vegas. Dad loved little children and when he married Mother her children became his. Sandra recalls that while they were living in North Las Vegas, she would walk with Dad to the gate of the trailer park each morning to wait for his ride. While they waited Dad picked up flat pieces of the clay dirt that had baked and cracked in the sun, and carved pictures for her. Sandra carefully saved her treasured pictures in a box under the trailer and was heart broken when Mother wouldn’t let her take the box of dirt when they moved. Construction work follows the job and Dad and Mother followed the work from Las Vegas to Martinez, California to Chandler, Arizona. Dad worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week. It was a hard lifestyle and Mother was homesick. Dad’s little family had become the center of his life and anything that threatened to take them from him was not worth it. So they tied onto their little trailer house and came back to Las Vegas and Dad got a job working at the Basic Magnesium plant in Henderson. In December of 1943, Hardy was born and Dad moved his family into Victory Village, the apartments built for the plant workers in Henderson. Having Mother come home with a new baby was quite an experience for me. Of course I had been around little [babies] before but having your own and having him in your house and the responsibility of him, was quite a joyful and sobering experience. Hardy was a difficult baby and had pneumonia as an infant. For a few weeks Mother and Grandmother Hardy and Dad took eight hour shifts walking the floor with him. Dad said that with his long work hours that didn’t leave much time for him to sleep. Dad began to feel that he was not doing right by his family and he needed to take them to church. As soon as he could get Sundays off he started to attend the branch in Henderson. His first church assignment, that he says he was the least qualified for, was teaching the Melchizedek Priesthood lessons. The other men, many of whom were seasoned and well founded in the gospel were kind, accepting and patient with him as he studied and presented the lessons. He realized any corrections they gave him were for his benefit and his testimony was soon strengthened so that he was, as he put it, “ready to go.” Dad was drafted into the army in the spring of 1945. He was shocked because he felt sure that his three children and work at a defense plant would keep him out of the war. This prompted him and Mother to finish their preparation and go to the temple. Dad and Mother, with Bob, Sandra and Hardy were sealed in the St. George Temple, April 20, 1945. He reported for military assignment at Fort Douglas within a week. Dad was heartsick to leave his little family, especially not knowing when or if he would see them again. But Dad was not to be a soldier, which was fine with him and he was given a medical discharge after only 12 weeks. This was the first time that Dad realized his eye problems were getting progressively worse. .The best news was that he was back with his little family in Henderson working at Stauffer Chemical Company, living in the little two bedroom house on Pacific Avenue and going to church. Life was pretty smooth for us at that time. I was making pretty good money and we were in the church. We were able to help Genevieve's folks a little bit and my folks a little bit take care of our own. . . . Those were very fruitful years and a very happy time in our lives. Sandra and Bob were real active in church and Mother was in the Relief Society or the Primary or the Sunday School or something and so was I. Life began to blossom and was pretty pleasant for us. In taking Hardy to Sunday School when he was about three years old and a timid little soul, there was no way that I could take him to a . . . class and leave him feeling bad about it. His mother was teaching a Sunday School class so I decided to take him down to the nursery where he belonged then. I couldn't leave him so I just stayed with him. There were several other little shavers that were having about as big a struggle as Hardy but their parents were just taking them there and leaving them and I couldn't stand that. I was too soft hearted. About the third week that I was down there with them, I had all the little shavers around me. Their mothers could bring them but now I was there so they were just fine. So I taught the nursery class for two years. I couldn't get out of Sunday School then, no way! Over the next few years, Dad served in the scouting program as Bob’s leader and as president of the Young Men’s MIA and then in the Sunday School Superintendency as counselor and superintendent on the ward and stake level. In September 1948, Kerry was born. When Kerry was three, Dad moved the family to a bigger, 3 bedroom house on Tin Street. By this time, Dad had some cows that he kept in a rented corral just outside of town. The extra milk was delivered and sold to various neighbors. Besides his regular work schedule, church duties and family, the cows were milked night and morning, every day. Each of us kids in turn had our first driving lessons on the way to the corral. When we were hardly big enough to see over the steering wheel, probably about 5 years old, Dad would hold us on his lap and let us steer the car. The road was a single lane, dirt track and in the sandy spots the tire ruts were pretty deep. Even at a slow speed it required more skill than we had to keep the car in the bottom of those tire tracks. We would go up one side and scrub the bushes, turn back, only to slowly go up the other side and scrub the bushes. This never seemed to worry Dad. He seemed to enjoy it as much as we did and I remember he let me do it over and over. About 1956, Dad began to worry that his deteriorating vision would create a dangerous situation with the chemicals at Stauffer. He left and went to work at Manganese Ore. He wasn’t there long when the union went on strike. With Bob on a mission in Central America he felt like he couldn’t wait around for the settlement and he found a job at the Las Vegas Flamingo. He worked there until he retired in 1974. Dad said that during the 30 years he lived in Henderson he was always involved in missionary work in one way or another. Much of it was done by reactivating members. Kerry recounted the following: I was Dad’s home teaching companion during most of the time I was in the Aaronic Priesthood. Dad was always assigned to visit the homes of inactive people. I am not sure I remember ever going to see anyone who came to Church regularly. We visited some families who had stopped going to Church years before. Some of them had antagonistic feelings toward the Church, but Dad could always get in and they not only let him in, but they welcomed him and were glad to see him. Dad always encouraged them to come back to Church. He gave invitations and encouragement. Over the years he was responsible for bringing quite a few people back to the Church. I remember one night in particular when we went to visit a new family. They had been in the ward a long time, but they never came to Church and I did not know them, but Dad did. Dad was very restless about the visit and I didn't understand it. I had never seen him that nervous about a visit before. When we went in, the woman was smoking a cigarette and I gathered from the conversation that she was not a member of the Church. The man was drinking a cup of coffee, but he knew Dad and was very friendly to him. They chatted for a few minutes and the brother was very despondent. He had been to the doctor and had been diagnosed with heart problems. He was forced to give up smoking and was going to have to make some other changes in his lifestyle. He was quite depressed about his health. We hadn't been there very long when Dad said that he was there to get the brother to come to priesthood meeting. He told him it was in the Relief Society Room on Sunday morning and that we would come on Sunday and get him and take him with us. He said that if he didn't go with us that he would ask to be reassigned as a home teacher. He said that if he couldn't get the brother to go to priesthood meeting that he was failing in his assignment and he would ask the bishop to send someone else who could get him to go to Church. The brother just looked at him. I was shell shocked. I had never heard Dad be quite that blunt. I fully expected to be invited to leave immediately. Then after what seemed to me was about an hour of silence, the brother said very quietly that we didn't need to come and get him. He said that he would be there. He said he knew where the Relief Society Room was. We left a few minutes later and Dad seemed very relieved. In the years since, I have come to realize what he was wrestling with. He was being prompted by the Spirit to do something that he wasn't completely comfortable with. But he listened and he did what was required. On Sunday morning that brother came to priesthood meeting. In fact, if I remember correctly, he came to all the meetings that day. This was in the days before the consolidated meeting schedule. All our other visits in their home in the months after that were a lot less tense. His wife was baptized a while after that and they eventually went to the temple. Sometime around the time I returned from my mission, that brother served in the bishopric of our ward. Sometimes Dad was not a conventional missionary. While he working at the Flamingo Hotel he got into a discussion with a self-proclaimed minister who was proselyting in the employee cafeteria. The minister said he couldn’t go along with the Mormons because they didn’t even believe in the Bible. When Dad assured him that we did, the man then maintained that Mormons didn’t worship with hymn singing. When Dad took issue with that the minister challenged, “Then sing one.” Dad promptly stood up and sang all three verses of “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet.” When he finished the 30 or so people in the lunch room sat in stunned silence for a brief moment followed by a standing ovation. One young man that Dad ‘taught on the job,’ so to speak, brought his father, a former minister to visit with Dad at the Flamingo. The end result was that the entire family of parents and twelve children, spouses and grandchildren accepted the gospel. When Dad was called into the Bishopric in the late 1950s, the first chapel in Henderson had just been completed. The cost had overrun the budget and it left the ward in debt some $6,000 to $7,000. The members were not supporting the ward budget and the welfare needs were adding to the financial strain. Dad said: Neither Bishop Duffin nor Bro. Charles were very good financial managers and I was the poorest there was. This really upset me. I didn't know how in the world we were ever going to come out. Gordon B. Hinckley called us and ordained and set us apart. He promised me at the time that if I would be faithful and do everything I could to keep my covenants that he would give me a blessing and ensure me that I would be able to do those things that I felt would be for the best good, while I was in the Bishopric. He reminded me of the covenants that Mother and I had made in the temple. . . I well remembered those things and I had tried pretty faithfully to keep those covenants. So I was able to serve there. We were able to pick up a project where we could work with our hands and make a little money. With me not sleeping too much and using all the elbow grease I could muster, in a year and a half's time we had our ward out of debt and had a few dollars to the good. Through the influence and the encouragement we gave in the ward our members picked up on their obligations in the ward budget. At the time I left the bishopric, I think we had some six or seven thousand dollars on hand and had our building all paid off and dedicated. It was a great experience to me and it was only through obedience to our Father in Heaven, through our faith, and through listening to the power and gift of the Holy Ghost that we were able to do that. You know men can't do those kinds of things on their own. They have to have the support of our Father in Heaven. He has laid down those rules and I bear witness that if we are obedient to them, then as he says, "If you do what I say, then I am bound. But if do not what I say then you have no hold upon me." I believe that with all my heart. Much of Dad’s assignment in the Bishopric was over Primary and so Dad went to Primary— not for an occasional visit but every week. Primary was held in the middle of the week after school. Dad would get home from work at 3:30 pm, quickly shower and change clothes and hurry and walk the two blocks to the chapel to be there to start at 4:00 pm. He started a “Reverence Class” for the unmanageable children. No one was unmanageable for Dad. He knew what they needed. Years later one of his Reverence Class regulars stopped him in a department store to introduce his wife and baby to Bro. Black. Regardless of the demands on Dad’s time he always had time for us, his children. Sandra recalls that the year she turned 14, she wanted to attend the 8th grad prom but of course she was too young to go on such a date. But Mother made her a new dress and Dad bought her a corsage and took her as his date. Mother was afraid she would be embarrassed by her friends but it was quite the opposite. Dad was a good dancer and her girlfriends with their awkward young boyfriends looked on with envy. She had such a good time with her “older man,” that the women chaperones assumed he must be a serviceman from Nellis Air Force Base and invited him to leave. He informed them he was her father and had every right to be there. When Hardy was old enough to be interested in mechanical things, Dad brought home a small Briggs & Stratton motor and taught him how to make it run. Hardy ran it morning, noon and night. Before it completely wore itself out, Dad hooked a compressor to it so Hardy could blow a little dirt around. Kerry also wrote about his mechanical training and the time Dad spent with him. We spent hours together working on motor scooters. When I was old enough, Dad got some old motor scooters that were being discarded at Flamingo. He brought them home and I started my education in mechanics. I spent hours cleaning and painting parts and putting things together, trying to figure out why an engine wouldn't start or figuring out how to adjust carburetors. Dad was a willing volunteer for my interest. I can remember many, many nights in the winter being out on the carport in front of the house in Henderson when the wind was howling and cold and I was trying to put something together and Dad was there helping me. I learned to braze and weld with a torch. I learned about engine tolerances and how to adjust bearings. I learned about ignition systems and troubleshooting. In short, I was getting an education in the fundamentals that I would use over and over and over again throughout my life. It has literally been worth thousands of dollars in money saved, as well as having the satisfaction of being able to be a little more independent and do some things for myself. Dad was always brilliant about mechanical things. Even down to the last few months of his life I would call him and ask his advice about cars or fixing things around the house. It has been amazing how often I would get stumped with a problem and after a few minutes on the phone with him I would be able to see the answer. It has been said over and over about him that he could see more with his mind's eye than most people could see with normal eyesight. But the most important education I got from him on those cold nights outside wasn't about the mechanical things that I was so interested in. It seemed like he never spent more than a few minutes with me without talking about the Gospel. He told me how he felt about the Church and about being obedient to the commandments. He told me about his expectations for me and for all of us, his children. He was letting me see his heart and his testimony of the truth. And all the time he was helping me do things that I wanted to do. For years I thought he spent all that time with me because he was as interested in motor scooters as I was. Since I have grown up I have come to realize that it was probably inconvenient for him. I know now that he was probably really busy and had a million other things that he could have been doing and that he needed to do. But he made me feel like the time he spent with me was pure enjoyment. What I learned about mechanics was invaluable to me, but what I learned about how much he loved me and about his testimony of the truth has been priceless. What he was really building wasn't motor scooters or even mechanical knowledge into a son. He was really fashioning the shield of faith and fitting it to me. It has been a protection to me against temptation all of my life. About the time I got old enough to drive, Dad decided that he had better quit driving and I became his regular chauffeur. It was another way of spending time with me talking about all the things that were really important. When you were with Dad the conversation always got around to the important things in life and he always made sure you understood what the Lord expected of you and how much he loved you. He would always tell me how proud he was of me for the good things I did. It would have been very hard for me to deliberately disappoint him I was Dad’s regular companion on his milk delivery route and in those days before ‘safety belts’ he drove with me standing next to him on the seat with my arm around his neck. It was our habit to stop at the Polar Queen for a nickel cherry drink. It was years before I realized that “You Are My Sunshine,” was a popular song and not one that he wrote just for me. Dad went to bed early and got up early. I don’t think he ever slept past 6 a.m. in his life. He couldn’t understand night owls and always said, “An hour before midnight is worth two hours after.” He also said, “A man would never amount to much if he couldn’t get the mattress off his back in the morning.” He hated being late to anything. During his years at Flamingo it was his habit to arrive at work early and have much of his routine checking and maintenance of the big equipment done before anyone else arrived. He finished work around three in the afternoon which left him the rest of the day for his own projects at home. And there was always something. But first he came in the house, found Mother and spent 30 minutes telling her the adventures of his day. And there was always an adventure. It wasn’t just the colorful characters he worked with — life was not boring to Dad. Retirement came early as Dad’s eyesight failed. When he left the Flamingo Hotel in 1974, he was only 59 years old. He couldn’t make the adjustment and stay in Henderson, so Dad and Mother moved to Orem, Utah to near Sandra and Kerry and their families. Blindness followed closely behind retirement. Both were extremely difficult but it just wasn’t in Dad to sit on his hands. Building things, inventing things, and improving things were the core of his existence. So even in the dark he continued to build rooms, prune trees, replace the furnace, overhaul the car engine, shovel snow, re-place the plumbing, make a violin, carve toys or a thousand other things that defied our comprehension. When his hands weren’t busy his mind was — planning more things to build or fix and organizing us to help him (tiring Mother out in the process). In Orem Dad continued to be a faithful home teacher and he attended the temple as often as he could. For several years he got up at 4:30 a.m. three mornings a week and rode to the temple with a neighbor to do several endowment session each time. His last few years were almost completely devoted to Mother’s care and comfort— sometimes against her will. So how do you summarize his life? Dad was common but so uncommon. As he grew into manhood the guiding principles of his life became crystalized and he never wavered. He understood the Lord’s purposes and aligned his life to them. He taught us to stand up for what was right, no matter what, and he did. He was stubborn without equal. When he visualized a problem, he would insist that it must be a certain way until you were finally left with just one counter — “But Dad, I can see it!” At the same time, he was humble and teachable. He acknowledged the Lord’s hand in his life and never took himself too seriously. He laughed at his own blunders – like the day he cleared the whole front yard of snow in his attempt to clear a path to the front gate. He was unselfish to a fault. He didn’t want to be served his food at a family gathering until he knew all the children had been served and there would be plenty for everyone else. He loved to sing and dance. We all learned to dance by standing on his toes. When Mother was ill he seemed to have a little verse to sing about everything. When he was in the hospital in Hesperia and experiencing serious pain, he sang little songs to the physical therapist and nurses. Even in his last months of life, he could remember more songs than most of us know. He was mechanical wizard. He told one fellow what was wrong with his car as he sat listening to it run in the grocery store parking lot. When asked, Dad was only too happy to get out and be of assistance. Imagine the other man’s shock when he found he had to lead Dad to the car. He was a master storyteller and his memory was legendary. He was telling us new stories from his vast store of experience almost to the last month of his life. He had no tolerance for things immoral or disrespectful. The ultimate evil to Dad was for a man to neglect his wife and family. But he was loving and accepting and the first to encourage others. He was grateful for everything. He never seemed to miss a chance to tell us he was grateful for us— who we were and what we did with our own families. His love and devotion to his wife and family was complete and unfailing. He was ill before Mother died but the Lord heard his humble pleadings and let him live to care for Mother. He passed away Wednesday, August 16, 2000, at 11 p.m. In my mind I can imagine his spirit raising up out of his body, sighing heavily and then saying, “Now, where’s Mother?” Thank you Dad, for teaching us what mattered in life. Thank you for teaching us to work and strive. Thank you for showing us how to patiently endure to the end with no complaints. Thank you, Dad, for loving the Lord and serving Him. Thank you, Dad, for loving and caring for our mother. Thank you, Dad, for loving us. We could never doubt your unconditional love for us. Your love will forever burn as a beacon in our hearts, guiding us home.

As I sit alone in the twilight of my life and watch the sinking sun, My thoughts drift back, to my childhood home; T' was a pleasant and happy one. My sisters and my brothers, they were there; My father and mother with their tender and watchful care. My thoughts turn then to the few short days I have left in this life. Have I touched the hearts of my children, so dear, along with my noble wife? Are we a beacon of light in the fast moving stream of time to guide them on to the right? That we may meet again up there with Thee, In Thy Son's everlasting light? It isn't the set of the canvas sail or the waves of the storm-tossed sea Or the swirling sand of the desert land that charts the course of our destiny. But it's the will of men and what's in men's hearts, in this world of the bond and the free, And how hard they'll fight for truth and right that determines what each will be. So let's enlighten our minds and soften our hearts and work with a will that is free. As we go through this life of toil and strife let us stretch forth a hand To those with whom we would love to be. And join with our might seeking truth and light in this realm of eternity. After this life's struggle is o'er and our blessed Savior we see, He can stretch forth his hand and gently command, "Enter in, and partake of my kingdom with me." Allen Clarence Black

Memories shared by Kerry Clayton Black, Given to his sister, Eva Lynn Black Garlick One of my first memories was when I was about 5 or so we went down to the corrals in Henderson to milk the cows. We were in the old Willys and I wanted to drive. So Dad put me up on his knee and turned the wheel over to me. I was in complete control of the steering. The road ran through some sandy stretches and in those places the tire ruts were really deep. I couldn't keep the car in the bottom of those tire tracks and I would go up and scrub the bushes on one side of the road and then down into the ruts and up on the other side and scrub the bushes on the other side. Dad had his foot on the gas and we must not have been going very fast, but it seemed to me like were flying. I was really frustrated about not being able to drive in a straight line. We drove like that for what seemed to me like a long ways. In thinking back on it, I can't believe how patient he was with me. Another memory I have is of him waking me up on Saturday mornings to go out in the desert and shovel sand or gravel into that little trailer and then we would come home and eat breakfast and then mix cement all day and pour sidewalks or whatever. I remember that we were finishing cement under a spotlight late at night on a couple of occasions. Of course Mom always did the final finishing. Dad could never get it smooth enough to suit her. He also used to wake me up early in the morning so that I could eat breakfast with him before I went to seminary. At first he used to touch my foot to wake me up. Then I got so used to it that he would just come into the room and speak my name and I would be awake. We would eat breakfast together and then he had prayers with me before he left for work and I would get ready and go to seminary. I remember some pretty unusual breakfast recipes like mush with lots of wheat germ and a raw egg cracked into it and boiled. It was different, but I learned to like whatever he cooked for me. I got very close to Dad from all those mornings we spent together. We also spent hours together working on motor scooters. When I was old enough, Dad got some old motor scooters that were being discarded at Flamingo. He brought them home and I started my education in mechanics. I spent hours cleaning and painting parts and putting things together, trying to figure out why an engine wouldn't start or figuring out how to adjust carburetors. Dad was a willing volunteer for my interest. I can remember many, many nights in the winter being out on the carport in front of the house in Henderson when the wind was howling and cold and I was trying to put something together and Dad was there helping me. I learned to braze and weld with a torch. I learned about engine tolerances and how to adjust bearings. I learned about ignition systems and troubleshooting. In short, I was getting an education in the fundamentals that I would use over and over and over again throughout my life. It has literally been worth thousands of dollars in money saved, as well as having the satisfaction of being able to be a little more independent and do some things for myself. Dad was always brilliant about mechanical things. Even down to the last few months of his life I would call him and ask his advice about cars or fixing things around the house. It has been amazing how often I would get stumped with a problem and after a few minutes on the phone with him I would be able to see the answer. It has been said over and over about him that he could see more with his mind's eye than most people could see with normal eyesight. But the most important education I got from him on those cold nights outside wasn't about the mechanical things that I was so interested in. It seemed like he never spent more than a few minutes with me without talking about the Gospel. He told me how he felt about the Church and about being obedient to the commandments. He told me about his expectations for me and for all of us, his children. He was letting me see his heart and his testimony of the truth. And all the time he was helping me do things that I wanted to do. For years I thought he spent all that time with me because he was as interested in motor scooters as I was. Since I have grown up I have come to realize that it was probably inconvenient for him. I know now that he was probably really busy and had a million other things that he would have rather been doing and that he needed to do. But he made me feel like the time he spent with me was pure enjoyment. What I learned about mechanics was invaluable to me, but what I learned about how much he loved me and about his testimony of the truth has been priceless. What he was really building wasn't motor scooters or even mechanical knowledge into a son. He was really fashioning the shield of faith and fitting it to me. It has been a protection to me against temptation all of my life. About the time I got old enough to drive, Dad decided that he had better quit driving and I became his regular chauffeur. It was another way of spending time with me talking about all the things that were really important. When you were with Dad the conversation always got around to the important things in life and he always made sure you understood what the Lord expected of you and how much he loved you. He would always tell me how proud he was of me for the good things I did. It would have been very hard for me to deliberately disappoint him I was also his home teaching companion during most of the time I was in the Aaronic Priesthood. Dad was always assigned to visit the homes of inactive people. I am not sure I remember ever going to see anyone who came to Church regularly. We visited some families who had stopped going to Church years before. Some of them had antagonistic feelings toward the Church, but Dad could always get in and they not only let him in, but they welcomed him and were glad to see him. Dad always encouraged them to come back to Church. He gave invitations and encouragement. Over the years he was responsible for bringing quite a few people back to the Church. I remember one night in particular when we went to visit a new family. They had been in the ward a long time, but they never came to Church and I did not know them, but Dad did. Dad was very restless about the visit and I didn't understand it. I had never seen him that nervous about a visit before. When we went in, the woman was smoking a cigarette and I gathered from the conversation that she was not a member of the Church. The man was drinking a cup of coffee, but he knew Dad and was very friendly to him. They chatted for a few minutes and the brother was very despondent. He had been to the doctor and had been diagnosed with heart problems. He had had to quit smoking and was going to have to make some other changes in his lifestyle. He was quite depressed about his health. We hadn't been there very long when Dad said that he was there to get the brother to come to priesthood meeting. He told him it was in the Relief Society Room on Sunday morning and that we would come on Sunday and get him and take him with us. He said that if he didn't go with us that he would ask to be reassigned as a home teacher. He said that if he couldn't get the brother to go to priesthood meeting that he was failing in his assignment and he would ask the bishop to send someone else who could get him to go to Church. The brother just looked at him. I was shell shocked. I had never heard Dad be quite that blunt. I fully expected to be invited to leave immediately. Then after what seemed to me was about an hour of silence, the brother said very quietly that we didn't need to come and get him. He said that he would be there. He said he knew where the Relief Society Room was. We left a few minutes later and Dad seemed very relieved. In the years since, I have come to realize what he was wrestling with. He was being prompted by the Spirit to do something that he wasn't completely comfortable with. But he listened and he did what was required. On Sunday morning that brother came to priesthood meeting. In fact, if I remember correctly, he came to all the meetings that day. This was in the days before the consolidated meeting schedule. All our other visits in their home in the months after that were a lot less tense. His wife was baptized a while after that and they eventually went to the temple. Sometime around the time I returned from my mission, that brother served as the Bishop of our ward. I have thought a lot about the poem Dad wrote. He talks about being a beacon of light in the stream of time. At first I had a mental image of a point of light in a dark sky like a star. Then I realized that Dad's beacon is not like that at all. It is more like a large floodlight shining down on a well marked pathway in the dark landscape. The light is his faith and testimony. The pathway is the example of his life. He has done a good job of showing us the way and illuminating the path. We just have to follow. Kerry Clayton Black

Given at his funeral Aug 2000 By his daughter Eva Lynn Black Garlick Allen Clarence Black was born July 28, 1915, at Glendale, Utah. He was the fourth of 10 children of Andrew Clarence Black and Sarah Matilda Biddlecome. Shortly after Dad was born, his parents, Clarence and Sarah, moved across the creek to the west side of Glendale. They had bought a log cabin which they set it up on a little piece of ground near the flour mill. Dad’s grandfather, Isaac Edwin Black owned and operated the flour mill and Clarence had moved there so he could be close to his father and help him work a lot at night and in the heavy season when the mill was running 24 hours a day. It was here that Dad spent the first five years of his life. Dad described his father and mother as very loving and considerate people whom he enjoyed a great deal. His next brother wasn't born until he was six years old so he had quite a bit of attention. He also enjoyed his grandmother and grandfather a great deal. As a small boy he went to the mill often and was able to get well acquainted with his Grandfather Black. Quoting from Dad’s History: My folks set their little hand hewn log house on the lot when I was about eight or ten days old. The house consisted of one log room about 14 X 16 feet with a 10 X 16 "lean to" on it. My earliest memory was at the time my Dad was putting the roof on this house. A log was dropped in the process making a loud noise and creating quite a commotion. I remember laying on the bed and looking up at the sky. I asked my mother about it some years later and she said I would have been about a month old. Every time I returned to that house I recalled that incident and the way the light looked up through the roof. When we moved across the creek by the mill we were not close to any other families with children. This meant that the four of us, Nellie, George, Mamie and I spent our time together. Everywhere we went it seemed like it was all four of us and we were very close to each other. Dad had fond and vivid memories of three summers his family spent on Cedar Mountain in Liddy’s Canyon while his father was tending sheep camps. It was a very pleasant place and he could be with his father. There was a small creek where they could swim and play and a large meadow next to the house. They picked berries of all sorts, choke cherries and crab apples to make jam and jelly and his mother saw to it that they had a garden with carrots, potatoes and peas. Two stories from his history illustrate character traits that were innate even at that young age. While we were there at Liddy's Canyon, we kids would sometimes go with my dad up to move the sheep camps. I being the smallest at about three years old, would ride on the saddle in front of him on the horse. But George and Nellie and Mamie would have to ride on the pack horse. One day when we were on the way back . . ., we ran into some porcupines in the meadow, they had been getting into our garden and causing trouble. While my dad stopped to kill the porcupines, the pack horse with the other kids went on out of the meadow and up to the gate. There the horses stopped to wait for the gate to be opened and the old "bally" horse probably went to sleep. As my dad came up to open the gate, instead of setting me down on the ground he just set me over on the old horse's rump. I grabbed the hair on the horse's tail and it excited him. I guess in his sleep he thought a bobcat cat had gotten him and he jumped! He jumped and kicked up just as high as he could kick up about three times, trying to shake me loose but I clung tight! It seemed to me that I was up in the air a hundred feet. It looked so far down I wasn't about to let go. He didn't shake me loose but he dumped George and Nellie and Mamie all off on the ground and they began to cry. Early that next Spring, I was out in our yard in Glendale playing when I saw some boys come down from town on the other side of the creek carrying a sack with something in it. As they got down along side the water's edge they untied the sack and opened it to put two or three pretty good sized rocks in it. Then they tied the sack up again and threw it out into the creek. . . . I saw the sack as it began to float along down the creek. I could see something bobbing up and down in it like it was alive. So I ran down stream a little way and off the bank and through the brush and to the edge of the creek. I went out into the stream about up to my waist. The water was running fairly swift and really cold. I grabbed the sack, dragged it out and opened it. It was an old cat and four little kittens! The kittens were drowned by that time but the old cat had managed to keep her head up above the water. I was really excited as I ran back up with the kitty. About that time Mother had discovered I was missing and had come looking for me. She saw me coming up the bank all wet with the kitty. I was really in trouble for leaving the yard and going into the creek, but Mother being soft hearted, let me keep the old cat. Again in the summer the family was up in the canyon. When Fall came that year it was time for us to move from the mountain back to town so that Nellie and Mamie and George could go to school. (George was just starting school that year.) As we packed up all our things, getting ready to go, it stormed really bad. We had to put the tarp wagon cover on to protect our belongings and keep them as dry as possible. I forgot about my old cat until we were ready to go. I went hunting her but couldn't find her any place. I hunted and hunted. We decided that maybe the coyotes or something had gotten her so we left without her. I felt pretty tough about it. On the way down it stormed again and the wagon got stuck in the mud a time or two. When we finally got home it was quite late and still raining. It seemed later to me than it probably was because it was cloudy. When we finally got things unloaded in the house, it was cold and we were all wet. After we got a fire going we felt pretty good. When I said my prayers that night, I asked my Father in Heaven if he wouldn't please save my old cat. About a week after we had moved home, the old cat showed up with four new kittens. She had carried them eight or ten miles and across the creek twice to get there. We could only guess as to whether she only started with four or had lost some on the way, but I was mighty glad to see her. The next summer, Clarence did some farming out on the Glendale bench and raised lots of potatoes and corn. The potatoes were dug and stored in a pit near the corral. That winter Dad’s job was to keep his mother’s potato bucket in the kitchen full as he brought in wood and coal. One afternoon he neglected his job until his mother insisted that he go up to the pit even in the dark. It was almost half a block to the pit where he would lift the lid and jump down in to fill the bucket. He didn’t like getting down in the dark hole especially when it was dark outside so he ran as fast as he could but when he stooped over to jerk the lid up, it was already off. And when he dropped his bucket down and jumped in he lit straddle of someone’s neck. Dad was small enough to be shoved right out as the intruder jumped up and ran. Dad hit the ground running in a panic back to the house where he breathlessly reported his fright in the potato pit. When Clarence went to investigate it didn’t take much to identify his neighbor, Billy Brimhall’s abandoned bucket full of potatoes. Clarence informed Sarah that he was going to Billy’s with potatoes and Dad ran along behind to see what would happen. Billy Brimhall was without work and it was looking very grim for his family. When Billy saw Grandpa’s imposing frame through the little glass window in the door he wouldn’t answer the knock. So Grandpa instructed Dad to just keep knocking at the front door while he went around to the kitchen door to scare Billy. When Grandpa walked right in with no knock, a terrified Billy stuttered, “Clarence, what are you going to do to me?” Grandpa sized up the situation and made arrangements for the Brimhalls to share their milk and get some things from the Bishop until they could provide for themselves. Dad said: So instead of my dad jumping all over him he was kind and considerate. That was quite a lesson to me. I was pretty proud of my dad. Even though I was only seven years old, I understood awfully well what the circumstances were. There were other lessons to be learned and many were from Dad’s Grandfather and Grandmother. The years I lived in Glendale were quite a spiritual time in my life. My Grandfather Black was a member of the bishopric and he was quite an inspiration to me. I remember going to Sunday School and Sacrament Meeting and things of that kind with my grandfather and I remember the little things that he told me along the way. I gained an awful lot of respect for him. I think that was a help to me all my life. I also remember the things that he taught me about the mill and how he handled tools and the way he did things. He was a real inspiration to me and I was really thankful for him. I hope some day that I can found be worthy of meeting him again. He said of his grandmother — My Grandmother Black was quite a small boned women. I think 108 pounds was the most she ever weighed in her life. She was quite a tall person and had very long arms and was very slender. She wasn't a person to show any outward affection to amount to anything but she was a person that showed her love by her service. She was a real joy to me and I learned to love her a great deal for the many things she did for me and the little things that she told me. I guess the only real affection that I ever saw her demonstrate was when my father would come home. Quite often he'd go down to meet his mother. Invariably, when he'd go to meet her he'd just reach down and pick her up in his arms. She'd put her arms around his neck and hug him a little bit and then he'd stand her down. They'd walk off together into the house. I thought that was about the keenest thing that I'd ever seen to see my daddy do that to my grandma. But she was a real choice person in my life. Dad’s next brother, Lew, was born just before he turned six years old. He said: I thought that having a new baby in the house was the nicest thing that ever happened to us, besides being a real novelty. Mother was beginning to think her family was complete with just the four of us and she was very happy when Lew was born. It was a whole lot better than Christmas. The family was not complete, in fact, they were only halfway. Wilford, Lyle, Dorothy Mae, Olive, and Joe were still to come. Dad said: I was always partial to my little brothers and sisters because after Lew was born my mother's health was poor. I put in lots of time with her and I naturally helped take care of the little kids. When I had to go away and be gone working I got real homesick for the little kids. I've always loved them. The Spring that Dad was seven the family moved from across the creek in Glendale to across the street from the school house.. A fall flood has washed out the swinging bridge and the foot bridge that replaced it worried Grandpa. Living right across the street from the school would solve the problem. Dad describes moving from a seven year old boy’s perspective. This was a real experience to me. The property had a large granary, a great big barn, a chicken coup and some other things, as well as a small three room frame house on it. . .The kitchen had an old "Home Comfort" cook stove, with a little chrome plate and a big reservoir on the back of it to heat water in. It was really a fancy thing. In the granary there was a corn sheller and two or three scythes. Upstairs there was an old 4590 rifle and a reloading outfit for it and several other things. These were real items to a seven year old boy! The barn was a big barn. It was built out of hewn timbers. . .That was a real piece of work, I thought. Moving that early in the Spring, the drive going up to the house from the main street was clay and it was really muddy. The team and wagon with the furniture on it kept stopping to rest because the mud was so deep. Boy, it was really a lark moving into the house, especially at that age. We had a large lawn with a big black locust tree and a willow tree right out in front of the house. On the east side of the house there was a sweet apple tree. Behind the house there was quite an apple orchard a Maiden Blush apple, a crab apple tree, several Josie Blue apples and some striped red apples. We really were fortunate. We owned a little better than half the block with our lot and we had . . . an alfalfa patch large enough to support a milk cow and a team of horses. We had a big garden spot where we could raise all of our own garden and most of our potatoes and things of that kind. That was good for me because George and I were given the responsibility, of keeping weeds out of the garden, doing watering and looking after things. The church house in Glendale was also right across the street from their home. That made it really handy and easy to be involved in all the activities. Dad was baptized with five or six other children in Hidden Lake two miles above town. He attended Primary and said: Primary at Glendale was quite an inspiration to me. Quite a lot of the time Marion Cox and I would be the only boys at Primary and sometimes he wasn't there. But at any rate I remember lots of things that I learned. Most of all, I remember the singing. It was the same way with Sunday School. Sunday School meant a lot to me. I was really proud and happy when I was old enough to be ordained a Deacon and be able to pass the Sacrament. Dad started school in the same school house that his father had attended. But after his first four years the community decided the wood floor with only one entrance was a fire hazard and a new one was constructed. This was such a novelty to Dad that even at nine years of age he was involved and remembered every detail. When the timber was brought down from Stout’s sawmill in the canyon above, he and George had the job of piling it and “stickin’ it up’ so that the boards would dry straight. They also turned the adobe bricks that were laid in the sun to harden. He described being able to help as a thrilling experience. Dad’s mechanical genius was developing as well. Quoting: During this time, I not only learned in school but I had the privilege of learning many other things. I still used to go over and spend some time in the flour mill with my grandfather. Practically all the machinery, other than the roller, was home made equipment. I learned a lot of things about [the mill]. I really appreciated that. Years afterward, when I went out to work on jobs, I remembered those things and it was quite an asset to me. I also learned to look after livestock and to ride horses. One winter, my father got the parts from two or three old wagons. With them he rebuilt the wagon wheels and made himself a real good wagon. I helped with that and I can remember how we shrank the tires on and the different things that we did. It didn't seem like much at the time, but it was all a learning process. I remembered those things because I was interested in that type of work. I never was a very good reader so books didn't mean much to me. But the things that I did with my hands and had the opportunity to help with were the things that I remembered. By the time Dad started high school, he and George had been involved in more that one financial endeavor, raising goats and “doggie” lambs, killing porcupines for 25¢ a piece, hiring out as farm hands and trapping bobcats and coyotes. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas that year, he and Ellis Anderson got a job working in Chris Lavangar’s little coal mine for 10¢ a carload. They were riding the school bus to and from the high school in Orderville but he and Ellis figured they could get an extra hour of work every evening if they got up early and rode their horses down through the snow and tied them up in a barn by the school. That way they didn’t have to wait for the bus after school. The coal car that they filled and pulled out with their horses would hold a thousand pounds and some nights if they worked pretty hard they could make 40 or 45 cents a piece. That February, Clarence was up in the night waiting on Sarah who was expecting Aunt Olive and he caught the house on fire. They managed to get their belongings out but the house burned down. The family moved into the uninsulated granary for temporary housing and were settled just in time for the new baby. Rather than rebuild when spring came, Clarence listened to his father and moved his family to Short Creek. There he could acquire some homestead property and be a spiritual strength to his brother, Dad’s Uncle Edwin, who was being influenced by the polygamist families that had moved in. The year Dad was fifteen, Dorothy Mae, Lyle, Lew and Wilford all contracted scarlatina and it settled in their kidneys. Wilford was the first to get sick and he died within a month of kidney failure. Sarah went to Hurricane with Wilford and the other children were taken to the Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City. Dad felt terrible watching his little 7 year old brother suffer when he was so sick. When Wilford died in the afternoon, Sarah had him dressed for burial and brought him home in a casket, arriving after dark with plans to bury him by noon the next day. He had not been expected to live so his grave site had been staked out in the Short Creek cemetery. Dad said he felt helpless to do anything so he got up early and took the shovel and had the grave all dug out before three men discovered him when they came to take care of it. By the time Dad was a Priest, polygamy was dividing the community of Short Creek. Dad avoided the conflict and hurt by working away from home herding sheep or working highway construction. Working took priority over school and Dad did not graduate from high school. He was home when the church authorities called the polygamists to repentance and excommunicated those who would not sustain the General Authorities. This was a hard time and Dad found it easier not to go to church because of the hard feelings and so began a period of inactivity. When Dad was 25, his parents had been living in St. George a few years and he and his father and George had a sawmill operation in Stout’s Canyon.. It was 1940 and he was attending the WPA dances in St. George where he met Genevieve Hardy. Dad had done some business with Genevieve’s father, Gile Hardy and admired his honesty, work ethic and blacksmith skill. Not long after he met mother he began to notice her two children, Sandra, 2½ yrs. old and Bob 7yrs. old. The following is a family legend that Dad loved to tell: One day I had been down to Gile's blacksmith shop that was just a block from our place. At the same time, Sandra had come to our place. She'd been around our place and she'd been quite friendly with me. This time I met her and she had something in her hands waving it around. I said, "Sandra, what have you got?" "Oh, it's my pants. They're wet so I took 'em off," she said as she skipped along for home. Dad described their courtship this way: Genevieve and I went together for a dozen times or so and I noticed that she took good care of her family. When I picked her up for the dances I watched the instructions she gave to Bob and how he should take care of Sandra. I could see how dear her children were to her and that appealed to me because I knew the love I had had for my little brothers and sisters. So one night when I took her home from the dance we were talking and she had told me some of the things that had happened in her life and some of the disappointments and some of the things that she expected out of life. I thought it over and it hit me that those were the same things that I wanted. So I ask her if she would marry me. She said she'd think it over for a few days and she wanted to know what had brought that on. So I told her about how I felt about her attitude toward her little kids. I told her those little ones were really an attraction to me and I'd like to share that with her. It went on for a few days and I went to see her and she said. "Well, when can we go?" So we talked it over and decided that Monday night I would pick her up and we'd go over to Flagstaff and get married. We'd get married there without blood tests and other formalities. So we did. Dad and Mother were married April 24, 1941. Within a short time Dad quit the saw mill operation and he began working construction in Las Vegas. Dad loved little children and when he married Mother her children became his. Sandra recalls that while they were living in North Las Vegas, she would walk with Dad to the gate of the trailer park each morning to wait for his ride. While they waited Dad picked up flat pieces of the clay dirt that had baked and cracked in the sun, and carved pictures for her. Sandra carefully saved her treasured pictures in a box under the trailer and was heart broken when Mother wouldn’t let her take the box of dirt when they moved. Construction work follows the job and Dad and Mother followed the work from Las Vegas to Martinez, California to Chandler, Arizona. Dad worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week. It was a hard lifestyle and Mother was homesick. Dad’s little family had become the center of his life and anything that threatened to take them from him was not worth it. So they tied onto their little trailer house and came back to Las Vegas and Dad got a job working at the Basic Magnesium plant in Henderson. In December of 1943, Hardy was born and Dad moved his family into Victory Village, the apartments built for the plant workers in Henderson. Having Mother come home with a new baby was quite an experience for me. Of course I had been around little [babies] before but having your own and having him in your house and the responsibility of him, was quite a joyful and sobering experience. Hardy was a difficult baby and had pneumonia as an infant. For a few weeks Mother and Grandmother Hardy and Dad took eight hour shifts walking the floor with him. Dad said that with his long work hours that didn’t leave much time for him to sleep. Dad began to feel that he was not doing right by his family and he needed to take them to church. As soon as he could get Sundays off he started to attend the branch in Henderson. His first church assignment, that he says he was the least qualified for, was teaching the Melchizedek Priesthood lessons. The other men, many of whom were seasoned and well founded in the gospel were kind, accepting and patient with him as he studied and presented the lessons. He realized any corrections they gave him were for his benefit and his testimony was soon strengthened so that he was, as he put it, “ready to go.” Dad was drafted into the army in the spring of 1945. He was shocked because he felt sure that his three children and work at a defense plant would keep him out of the war. This prompted him and Mother to finish their preparation and go to the temple. Dad and Mother, with Bob, Sandra and Hardy were sealed in the St. George Temple, April 20, 1945. He reported for military assignment at Fort Douglas within a week. Dad was heartsick to leave his little family, especially not knowing when or if he would see them again. But Dad was not to be a soldier, which was fine with him and he was given a medical discharge after only 12 weeks. This was the first time that Dad realized his eye problems were getting progressively worse. .The best news was that he was back with his little family in Henderson working at Stauffer Chemical Company, living in the little two bedroom house on Pacific Avenue and going to church. Life was pretty smooth for us at that time. I was making pretty good money and we were in the church. We were able to help Genevieve's folks a little bit and my folks a little bit take care of our own. . . . Those were very fruitful years and a very happy time in our lives. Sandra and Bob were real active in church and Mother was in the Relief Society or the Primary or the Sunday School or something and so was I. Life began to blossom and was pretty pleasant for us. In taking Hardy to Sunday School when he was about three years old and a timid little soul, there was no way that I could take him to a . . . class and leave him feeling bad about it. His mother was teaching a Sunday School class so I decided to take him down to the nursery where he belonged then. I couldn't leave him so I just stayed with him. There were several other little shavers that were having about as big a struggle as Hardy but their parents were just taking them there and leaving them and I couldn't stand that. I was too soft hearted. About the third week that I was down there with them, I had all the little shavers around me. Their mothers could bring them but now I was there so they were just fine. So I taught the nursery class for two years. I couldn't get out of Sunday School then, no way! Over the next few years, Dad served in the scouting program as Bob’s leader and as president of the Young Men’s MIA and then in the Sunday School Superintendency as counselor and superintendent on the ward and stake level. In September 1948, Kerry was born. When Kerry was three, Dad moved the family to a bigger, 3 bedroom house on Tin Street. By this time, Dad had some cows that he kept in a rented corral just outside of town. The extra milk was delivered and sold to various neighbors. Besides his regular work schedule, church duties and family, the cows were milked night and morning, every day. Each of us kids in turn had our first driving lessons on the way to the corral. When we were hardly big enough to see over the steering wheel, probably about 5 years old, Dad would hold us on his lap and let us steer the car. The road was a single lane, dirt track and in the sandy spots the tire ruts were pretty deep. Even at a slow speed it required more skill than we had to keep the car in the bottom of those tire tracks. We would go up one side and scrub the bushes, turn back, only to slowly go up the other side and scrub the bushes. This never seemed to worry Dad. He seemed to enjoy it as much as we did and I remember he let me do it over and over. About 1956, Dad began to worry that his deteriorating vision would create a dangerous situation with the chemicals at Stauffer. He left and went to work at Manganese Ore. He wasn’t there long when the union went on strike. With Bob on a mission in Central America he felt like he couldn’t wait around for the settlement and he found a job at the Las Vegas Flamingo. He worked there until he retired in 1974. Dad said that during the 30 years he lived in Henderson he was always involved in missionary work in one way or another. Much of it was done by reactivating members. Kerry recounted the following: I was Dad’s home teaching companion during most of the time I was in the Aaronic Priesthood. Dad was always assigned to visit the homes of inactive people. I am not sure I remember ever going to see anyone who came to Church regularly. We visited some families who had stopped going to Church years before. Some of them had antagonistic feelings toward the Church, but Dad could always get in and they not only let him in, but they welcomed him and were glad to see him. Dad always encouraged them to come back to Church. He gave invitations and encouragement. Over the years he was responsible for bringing quite a few people back to the Church. I remember one night in particular when we went to visit a new family. They had been in the ward a long time, but they never came to Church and I did not know them, but Dad did. Dad was very restless about the visit and I didn't understand it. I had never seen him that nervous about a visit before. When we went in, the woman was smoking a cigarette and I gathered from the conversation that she was not a member of the Church. The man was drinking a cup of coffee, but he knew Dad and was very friendly to him. They chatted for a few minutes and the brother was very despondent. He had been to the doctor and had been diagnosed with heart problems. He was forced to give up smoking and was going to have to make some other changes in his lifestyle. He was quite depressed about his health. We hadn't been there very long when Dad said that he was there to get the brother to come to priesthood meeting. He told him it was in the Relief Society Room on Sunday morning and that we would come on Sunday and get him and take him with us. He said that if he didn't go with us that he would ask to be reassigned as a home teacher. He said that if he couldn't get the brother to go to priesthood meeting that he was failing in his assignment and he would ask the bishop to send someone else who could get him to go to Church. The brother just looked at him. I was shell shocked. I had never heard Dad be quite that blunt. I fully expected to be invited to leave immediately. Then after what seemed to me was about an hour of silence, the brother said very quietly that we didn't need to come and get him. He said that he would be there. He said he knew where the Relief Society Room was. We left a few minutes later and Dad seemed very relieved. In the years since, I have come to realize what he was wrestling with. He was being prompted by the Spirit to do something that he wasn't completely comfortable with. But he listened and he did what was required. On Sunday morning that brother came to priesthood meeting. In fact, if I remember correctly, he came to all the meetings that day. This was in the days before the consolidated meeting schedule. All our other visits in their home in the months after that were a lot less tense. His wife was baptized a while after that and they eventually went to the temple. Sometime around the time I returned from my mission, that brother served in the bishopric of our ward. Sometimes Dad was not a conventional missionary. While he working at the Flamingo Hotel he got into a discussion with a self-proclaimed minister who was proselyting in the employee cafeteria. The minister said he couldn’t go along with the Mormons because they didn’t even believe in the Bible. When Dad assured him that we did, the man then maintained that Mormons didn’t worship with hymn singing. When Dad took issue with that the minister challenged, “Then sing one.” Dad promptly stood up and sang all three verses of “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet.” When he finished the 30 or so people in the lunch room sat in stunned silence for a brief moment followed by a standing ovation. One young man that Dad ‘taught on the job,’ so to speak, brought his father, a former minister to visit with Dad at the Flamingo. The end result was that the entire family of parents and twelve children, spouses and grandchildren accepted the gospel. When Dad was called into the Bishopric in the late 1950s, the first chapel in Henderson had just been completed. The cost had overrun the budget and it left the ward in debt some $6,000 to $7,000. The members were not supporting the ward budget and the welfare needs were adding to the financial strain. Dad said: Neither Bishop Duffin nor Bro. Charles were very good financial managers and I was the poorest there was. This really upset me. I didn't know how in the world we were ever going to come out. Gordon B. Hinckley called us and ordained and set us apart. He promised me at the time that if I would be faithful and do everything I could to keep my covenants that he would give me a blessing and ensure me that I would be able to do those things that I felt would be for the best good, while I was in the Bishopric. He reminded me of the covenants that Mother and I had made in the temple. . . I well remembered those things and I had tried pretty faithfully to keep those covenants. So I was able to serve there. We were able to pick up a project where we could work with our hands and make a little money. With me not sleeping too much and using all the elbow grease I could muster, in a year and a half's time we had our ward out of debt and had a few dollars to the good. Through the influence and the encouragement we gave in the ward our members picked up on their obligations in the ward budget. At the time I left the bishopric, I think we had some six or seven thousand dollars on hand and had our building all paid off and dedicated. It was a great experience to me and it was only through obedience to our Father in Heaven, through our faith, and through listening to the power and gift of the Holy Ghost that we were able to do that. You know men can't do those kinds of things on their own. They have to have the support of our Father in Heaven. He has laid down those rules and I bear witness that if we are obedient to them, then as he says, "If you do what I say, then I am bound. But if do not what I say then you have no hold upon me." I believe that with all my heart. Much of Dad’s assignment in the Bishopric was over Primary and so Dad went to Primary— not for an occasional visit but every week. Primary was held in the middle of the week after school. Dad would get home from work at 3:30 pm, quickly shower and change clothes and hurry and walk the two blocks to the chapel to be there to start at 4:00 pm. He started a “Reverence Class” for the unmanageable children. No one was unmanageable for Dad. He knew what they needed. Years later one of his Reverence Class regulars stopped him in a department store to introduce his wife and baby to Bro. Black. Regardless of the demands on Dad’s time he always had time for us, his children. Sandra recalls that the year she turned 14, she wanted to attend the 8th grad prom but of course she was too young to go on such a date. But Mother made her a new dress and Dad bought her a corsage and took her as his date. Mother was afraid she would be embarrassed by her friends but it was quite the opposite. Dad was a good dancer and her girlfriends with their awkward young boyfriends looked on with envy. She had such a good time with her “older man,” that the women chaperones assumed he must be a serviceman from Nellis Air Force Base and invited him to leave. He informed them he was her father and had every right to be there. When Hardy was old enough to be interested in mechanical things, Dad brought home a small Briggs & Stratton motor and taught him how to make it run. Hardy ran it morning, noon and night. Before it completely wore itself out, Dad hooked a compressor to it so Hardy could blow a little dirt around. Kerry also wrote about his mechanical training and the time Dad spent with him. We spent hours together working on motor scooters. When I was old enough, Dad got some old motor scooters that were being discarded at Flamingo. He brought them home and I started my education in mechanics. I spent hours cleaning and painting parts and putting things together, trying to figure out why an engine wouldn't start or figuring out how to adjust carburetors. Dad was a willing volunteer for my interest. I can remember many, many nights in the winter being out on the carport in front of the house in Henderson when the wind was howling and cold and I was trying to put something together and Dad was there helping me. I learned to braze and weld with a torch. I learned about engine tolerances and how to adjust bearings. I learned about ignition systems and troubleshooting. In short, I was getting an education in the fundamentals that I would use over and over and over again throughout my life. It has literally been worth thousands of dollars in money saved, as well as having the satisfaction of being able to be a little more independent and do some things for myself. Dad was always brilliant about mechanical things. Even down to the last few months of his life I would call him and ask his advice about cars or fixing things around the house. It has been amazing how often I would get stumped with a problem and after a few minutes on the phone with him I would be able to see the answer. It has been said over and over about him that he could see more with his mind's eye than most people could see with normal eyesight. But the most important education I got from him on those cold nights outside wasn't about the mechanical things that I was so interested in. It seemed like he never spent more than a few minutes with me without talking about the Gospel. He told me how he felt about the Church and about being obedient to the commandments. He told me about his expectations for me and for all of us, his children. He was letting me see his heart and his testimony of the truth. And all the time he was helping me do things that I wanted to do. For years I thought he spent all that time with me because he was as interested in motor scooters as I was. Since I have grown up I have come to realize that it was probably inconvenient for him. I know now that he was probably really busy and had a million other things that he could have been doing and that he needed to do. But he made me feel like the time he spent with me was pure enjoyment. What I learned about mechanics was invaluable to me, but what I learned about how much he loved me and about his testimony of the truth has been priceless. What he was really building wasn't motor scooters or even mechanical knowledge into a son. He was really fashioning the shield of faith and fitting it to me. It has been a protection to me against temptation all of my life. About the time I got old enough to drive, Dad decided that he had better quit driving and I became his regular chauffeur. It was another way of spending time with me talking about all the things that were really important. When you were with Dad the conversation always got around to the important things in life and he always made sure you understood what the Lord expected of you and how much he loved you. He would always tell me how proud he was of me for the good things I did. It would have been very hard for me to deliberately disappoint him I was Dad’s regular companion on his milk delivery route and in those days before ‘safety belts’ he drove with me standing next to him on the seat with my arm around his neck. It was our habit to stop at the Polar Queen for a nickel cherry drink. It was years before I realized that “You Are My Sunshine,” was a popular song and not one that he wrote just for me. Dad went to bed early and got up early. I don’t think he ever slept past 6 a.m. in his life. He couldn’t understand night owls and always said, “An hour before midnight is worth two hours after.” He also said, “A man would never amount to much if he couldn’t get the mattress off his back in the morning.” He hated being late to anything. During his years at Flamingo it was his habit to arrive at work early and have much of his routine checking and maintenance of the big equipment done before anyone else arrived. He finished work around three in the afternoon which left him the rest of the day for his own projects at home. And there was always something. But first he came in the house, found Mother and spent 30 minutes telling her the adventures of his day. And there was always an adventure. It wasn’t just the colorful characters he worked with — life was not boring to Dad. Retirement came early as Dad’s eyesight failed. When he left the Flamingo Hotel in 1974, he was only 59 years old. He couldn’t make the adjustment and stay in Henderson, so Dad and Mother moved to Orem, Utah to near Sandra and Kerry and their families. Blindness followed closely behind retirement. Both were extremely difficult but it just wasn’t in Dad to sit on his hands. Building things, inventing things, and improving things were the core of his existence. So even in the dark he continued to build rooms, prune trees, replace the furnace, overhaul the car engine, shovel snow, re-place the plumbing, make a violin, carve toys or a thousand other things that defied our comprehension. When his hands weren’t busy his mind was — planning more things to build or fix and organizing us to help him (tiring Mother out in the process). In Orem Dad continued to be a faithful home teacher and he attended the temple as often as he could. For several years he got up at 4:30 a.m. three mornings a week and rode to the temple with a neighbor to do several endowment session each time. His last few years were almost completely devoted to Mother’s care and comfort— sometimes against her will. So how do you summarize his life? Dad was common but so uncommon. As he grew into manhood the guiding principles of his life became crystalized and he never wavered. He understood the Lord’s purposes and aligned his life to them. He taught us to stand up for what was right, no matter what, and he did. He was stubborn without equal. When he visualized a problem, he would insist that it must be a certain way until you were finally left with just one counter — “But Dad, I can see it!” At the same time, he was humble and teachable. He acknowledged the Lord’s hand in his life and never took himself too seriously. He laughed at his own blunders – like the day he cleared the whole front yard of snow in his attempt to clear a path to the front gate. He was unselfish to a fault. He didn’t want to be served his food at a family gathering until he knew all the children had been served and there would be plenty for everyone else. He loved to sing and dance. We all learned to dance by standing on his toes. When Mother was ill he seemed to have a little verse to sing about everything. When he was in the hospital in Hesperia and experiencing serious pain, he sang little songs to the physical therapist and nurses. Even in his last months of life, he could remember more songs than most of us know. He was mechanical wizard. He told one fellow what was wrong with his car as he sat listening to it run in the grocery store parking lot. When asked, Dad was only too happy to get out and be of assistance. Imagine the other man’s shock when he found he had to lead Dad to the car. He was a master storyteller and his memory was legendary. He was telling us new stories from his vast store of experience almost to the last month of his life. He had no tolerance for things immoral or disrespectful. The ultimate evil to Dad was for a man to neglect his wife and family. But he was loving and accepting and the first to encourage others. He was grateful for everything. He never seemed to miss a chance to tell us he was grateful for us— who we were and what we did with our own families. His love and devotion to his wife and family was complete and unfailing. He was ill before Mother died but the Lord heard his humble pleadings and let him live to care for Mother. He passed away Wednesday, August 16, 2000, at 11 p.m. In my mind I can imagine his spirit raising up out of his body, sighing heavily and then saying, “Now, where’s Mother?” Thank you Dad, for teaching us what mattered in life. Thank you for teaching us to work and strive. Thank you for showing us how to patiently endure to the end with no complaints. Thank you, Dad, for loving the Lord and serving Him. Thank you, Dad, for loving and caring for our mother. Thank you, Dad, for loving us. We could never doubt your unconditional love for us. Your love will forever burn as a beacon in our hearts, guiding us home.

As I sit alone in the twilight of my life and watch the sinking sun, My thoughts drift back, to my childhood home; T' was a pleasant and happy one. My sisters and my brothers, they were there; My father and mother with their tender and watchful care. My thoughts turn then to the few short days I have left in this life. Have I touched the hearts of my children, so dear, along with my noble wife? Are we a beacon of light in the fast moving stream of time to guide them on to the right? That we may meet again up there with Thee, In Thy Son's everlasting light? It isn't the set of the canvas sail or the waves of the storm-tossed sea Or the swirling sand of the desert land that charts the course of our destiny. But it's the will of men and what's in men's hearts, in this world of the bond and the free, And how hard they'll fight for truth and right that determines what each will be. So let's enlighten our minds and soften our hearts and work with a will that is free. As we go through this life of toil and strife let us stretch forth a hand To those with whom we would love to be. And join with our might seeking truth and light in this realm of eternity. After this life's struggle is o'er and our blessed Savior we see, He can stretch forth his hand and gently command, "Enter in, and partake of my kingdom with me." Allen Clarence Black

Memories shared by Kerry Clayton Black, Given to his sister, Eva Lynn Black Garlick One of my first memories was when I was about 5 or so we went down to the corrals in Henderson to milk the cows. We were in the old Willys and I wanted to drive. So Dad put me up on his knee and turned the wheel over to me. I was in complete control of the steering. The road ran through some sandy stretches and in those places the tire ruts were really deep. I couldn't keep the car in the bottom of those tire tracks and I would go up and scrub the bushes on one side of the road and then down into the ruts and up on the other side and scrub the bushes on the other side. Dad had his foot on the gas and we must not have been going very fast, but it seemed to me like were flying. I was really frustrated about not being able to drive in a straight line. We drove like that for what seemed to me like a long ways. In thinking back on it, I can't believe how patient he was with me. Another memory I have is of him waking me up on Saturday mornings to go out in the desert and shovel sand or gravel into that little trailer and then we would come home and eat breakfast and then mix cement all day and pour sidewalks or whatever. I remember that we were finishing cement under a spotlight late at night on a couple of occasions. Of course Mom always did the final finishing. Dad could never get it smooth enough to suit her. He also used to wake me up early in the morning so that I could eat breakfast with him before I went to seminary. At first he used to touch my foot to wake me up. Then I got so used to it that he would just come into the room and speak my name and I would be awake. We would eat breakfast together and then he had prayers with me before he left for work and I would get ready and go to seminary. I remember some pretty unusual breakfast recipes like mush with lots of wheat germ and a raw egg cracked into it and boiled. It was different, but I learned to like whatever he cooked for me. I got very close to Dad from all those mornings we spent together. We also spent hours together working on motor scooters. When I was old enough, Dad got some old motor scooters that were being discarded at Flamingo. He brought them home and I started my education in mechanics. I spent hours cleaning and painting parts and putting things together, trying to figure out why an engine wouldn't start or figuring out how to adjust carburetors. Dad was a willing volunteer for my interest. I can remember many, many nights in the winter being out on the carport in front of the house in Henderson when the wind was howling and cold and I was trying to put something together and Dad was there helping me. I learned to braze and weld with a torch. I learned about engine tolerances and how to adjust bearings. I learned about ignition systems and troubleshooting. In short, I was getting an education in the fundamentals that I would use over and over and over again throughout my life. It has literally been worth thousands of dollars in money saved, as well as having the satisfaction of being able to be a little more independent and do some things for myself. Dad was always brilliant about mechanical things. Even down to the last few months of his life I would call him and ask his advice about cars or fixing things around the house. It has been amazing how often I would get stumped with a problem and after a few minutes on the phone with him I would be able to see the answer. It has been said over and over about him that he could see more with his mind's eye than most people could see with normal eyesight. But the most important education I got from him on those cold nights outside wasn't about the mechanical things that I was so interested in. It seemed like he never spent more than a few minutes with me without talking about the Gospel. He told me how he felt about the Church and about being obedient to the commandments. He told me about his expectations for me and for all of us, his children. He was letting me see his heart and his testimony of the truth. And all the time he was helping me do things that I wanted to do. For years I thought he spent all that time with me because he was as interested in motor scooters as I was. Since I have grown up I have come to realize that it was probably inconvenient for him. I know now that he was probably really busy and had a million other things that he would have rather been doing and that he needed to do. But he made me feel like the time he spent with me was pure enjoyment. What I learned about mechanics was invaluable to me, but what I learned about how much he loved me and about his testimony of the truth has been priceless. What he was really building wasn't motor scooters or even mechanical knowledge into a son. He was really fashioning the shield of faith and fitting it to me. It has been a protection to me against temptation all of my life. About the time I got old enough to drive, Dad decided that he had better quit driving and I became his regular chauffeur. It was another way of spending time with me talking about all the things that were really important. When you were with Dad the conversation always got around to the important things in life and he always made sure you understood what the Lord expected of you and how much he loved you. He would always tell me how proud he was of me for the good things I did. It would have been very hard for me to deliberately disappoint him I was also his home teaching companion during most of the time I was in the Aaronic Priesthood. Dad was always assigned to visit the homes of inactive people. I am not sure I remember ever going to see anyone who came to Church regularly. We visited some families who had stopped going to Church years before. Some of them had antagonistic feelings toward the Church, but Dad could always get in and they not only let him in, but they welcomed him and were glad to see him. Dad always encouraged them to come back to Church. He gave invitations and encouragement. Over the years he was responsible for bringing quite a few people back to the Church. I remember one night in particular when we went to visit a new family. They had been in the ward a long time, but they never came to Church and I did not know them, but Dad did. Dad was very restless about the visit and I didn't understand it. I had never seen him that nervous about a visit before. When we went in, the woman was smoking a cigarette and I gathered from the conversation that she was not a member of the Church. The man was drinking a cup of coffee, but he knew Dad and was very friendly to him. They chatted for a few minutes and the brother was very despondent. He had been to the doctor and had been diagnosed with heart problems. He had had to quit smoking and was going to have to make some other changes in his lifestyle. He was quite depressed about his health. We hadn't been there very long when Dad said that he was there to get the brother to come to priesthood meeting. He told him it was in the Relief Society Room on Sunday morning and that we would come on Sunday and get him and take him with us. He said that if he didn't go with us that he would ask to be reassigned as a home teacher. He said that if he couldn't get the brother to go to priesthood meeting that he was failing in his assignment and he would ask the bishop to send someone else who could get him to go to Church. The brother just looked at him. I was shell shocked. I had never heard Dad be quite that blunt. I fully expected to be invited to leave immediately. Then after what seemed to me was about an hour of silence, the brother said very quietly that we didn't need to come and get him. He said that he would be there. He said he knew where the Relief Society Room was. We left a few minutes later and Dad seemed very relieved. In the years since, I have come to realize what he was wrestling with. He was being prompted by the Spirit to do something that he wasn't completely comfortable with. But he listened and he did what was required. On Sunday morning that brother came to priesthood meeting. In fact, if I remember correctly, he came to all the meetings that day. This was in the days before the consolidated meeting schedule. All our other visits in their home in the months after that were a lot less tense. His wife was baptized a while after that and they eventually went to the temple. Sometime around the time I returned from my mission, that brother served as the Bishop of our ward. I have thought a lot about the poem Dad wrote. He talks about being a beacon of light in the stream of time. At first I had a mental image of a point of light in a dark sky like a star. Then I realized that Dad's beacon is not like that at all. It is more like a large floodlight shining down on a well marked pathway in the dark landscape. The light is his faith and testimony. The pathway is the example of his life. He has done a good job of showing us the way and illuminating the path. We just have to follow. Kerry Clayton Black