Below is a copy of the talk that I gave at my father's funeral --- James.  

Over the past few days, I’ve gathered from the members of my immediate family, their memories of my father’s character, together with specific examples that illustrate his attributes.  I’ve combined their input, so that I can speak, in the aggregate, of how my family saw him.  

My father was generous.  For example, if you went with him to a restaurant, he would never let you pay.  Rebbie shares the story that, once, she accidentally backed into his truck and left a dent.  He wouldn’t let her take it in for repairs or accept money to fix it.  Also, when her family needed a place to stay, he opened his home to them. 

Emily tells the story of Dad showing up on her doorstep unannounced not long before he and mom left on their mission.  At that time, Emily’s family was preparing to move to North Carolina.  He handed her a short stack of cash, saying that it was spending money for the grandkids during the trip.  On the top of the stack were small bills, but buried deeper were big bills, which demonstrated his true intention to help her family with the expense of moving cross-country.    

He had stamina and an amazing work ethic.  He was always busy with home projects, helping others, or church service.  Because I was his conscript as a teenager, I can tell you from personal experience how many families he helped move in and out of this neighborhood and how many miles of snow he shoveled for folks who needed help. 

If you asked for his advice on how to do a project, he would just show up and start work on it.  He always saw it through to completion. 

Recently, Rebbie’s family bought a home in California that was a true fixer-upper.  The kitchen had to be completely gutted.  So, she asked my dad to go out there for a weekend to help.  Despite the fact that he was more than 20 years older than Rebbie and her husband, he worked 12 hours per day doing hard, manual labor.  Alexa remembers that he destroyed the kitchen cabinets with a sledgehammer.  He wouldn’t even break for lunch.  Instead, he asked Rebbie’s family to bring him food so that he could stay onsite and work. 

Not long ago, he spent a Saturday morning helping Roger cut an enormous limb from an overgrown tree in his backyard.  The limb got away from them and ended up falling on Roger’s neighbor’s fence, obliterating a section of it.  They then spent the afternoon rebuilding the fence that they had accidentally destroyed. 

One of the ways my dad showed his love for his family was by building things for us.  He built clubhouses, stilts, a covered sandbox designed to prevent stray cats from using it as a litter box, shelves and desks for our bedrooms, a pull-up bar for gymnastics training, and a rack to store the grandkids’ skis.  When Rebbie’s kids wanted to give her a big gift for Christmas, but had a limited budget, he gathered wood scraps for them and helped to build a step stool for her.  With Mikaela, he built a wooden train.  He even made a heated house for our family’s cat to keep it warm in winter. 

He could fix just about anything and succeeded in extending the life of many tools and appliances, sometimes far beyond what was necessary or reasonable.  There is no better example of this principle than his electric lawn edger, which stands as a monument to thrift.  For those of you who may not have seen this work of art, the edger lost its original metal and plastic handle probably sometime in the mid-80’s.  He replaced the broken handle with a scrap wood and continued to use it until he and my mom moved out of the neighborhood last year.  

My father always watched out for us.  When we went on family camping trips, he would wake up several times in the night to see whether we were warm enough.  If not, he would help us bundle up.  During winter trips to our family’s mountain cabin when our snowmobiles would get stuck in deep powder, he would spend hours digging them out. 

A few years ago, the extended family took a vacation to the Oregon coast.  They stayed in a small town with winding roads and street signs that were difficult to read.  Rebbie’s family arrived late at night, some time between 1-2 am.  My dad was concerned that they might miss a crucial turnoff and get lost.  So he waited for them at the fork in the road, outside in the dark.  My mom says that when they saw him sitting there, on a bench by the side of the road, in the middle of the night, at first they thought he was the town drunk.        

He constantly performed thoughtful gestures, but he would usually do so inconspicuously and in the background.  For example, Emily relates that at family gatherings he would quietly lead her children away from the group and play with them so that she could have time to interact with the adults. 

Every year on his birthday, he gave a dozen roses to Grandma Bradshaw, reasoning that since she had the tough job in the birthing room, she was the one who deserved a present. 

When we were kids, on Valentine’s Day, dad always left a handmade note and chocolates on our pillows. 

He even paid for expensive feline dental surgery, which I am sure went against his DNA and all his principles, to extend the life of the family’s extremely elderly cat which had become my Grandma Bradshaw’s constant companion in the months before she passed away.

My father was accepting of other people, even difficult people, especially later in life.  I like to think that I gave him some of his first opportunities for personal growth that helped him to develop this attribute.  Later, I believe that Chris helped him perfect it.  For years, we have both taken perverse delight in dragging him to ethnic restaurants, and challenging his palate with dishes whose names he can’t pronounce.  But, he goes along every time, and doesn’t complain.  And I even think he really liked naan.    

He had a dorky, grandpa sense of humor, long before he became a grandpa.  Who remembers his false front tooth and how many times he would pull it out for comedic effect?  As kids, we thought it was pretty funny, but my dad thought that it was much funnier.  Halloween after Halloween, he would get dressed up and sit motionless, like a dummy on the front porch, waiting for unsuspecting trick or treaters or grandkids to walk into his trap.  When they got close, he would leap up and scare them, chuckling to himself the whole time.      

My dad liked to play with his kids and grandkids.  Growing up, we all remember lots of wrestling and airplane rides.  Zoe enjoyed playing golf with her grandpa.  Alexa remembers making a snow fort with him.  He liked board games, card games, and crossword puzzles.  He frequently read books to the grandkids.  Mia wouldn’t let her grandpa stop reading until he had read to her every book she had.

He enjoyed sports, including team sports, but was cursed with several male offspring who were born without the gene responsible for generating an interest in watching them.  Nonetheless he would take us to BYU football games and many Gulls, Buzz, and Bees baseball games. 

Once, at a Gulls game, he caught a foul ball with his bare hand.  It stung a lot, but he did it for us.  Everyone who was there (me, Roger, Mike, Todd, and Rick, I think) signed and dated the ball, which he kept on a bookshelf in his den for many years. 

Who can forget his old-school black transistor radio that he would carry around with him while doing yard work on Saturdays, listening to BYU football on the KSL AM station? 

He taught us how to shoot rifles and fish for trout.  With the grandkids, he would go running, snowshoeing, and camping. 

At dawn on Saturdays, when Roger and I were teenagers, he would drag us to the golf course. I suspect it was passive-aggressive punishment for me for staying out late on Friday nights.  From that, he succeeded in creating some good memories, but, as collateral damage, instilled in me a permanent dislike for golf. 

He taught all of us by his words and his example.  To his kids, he demonstrated how to be a loving spouse and a dedicated family member.  At Christmastime, he would agree on spending limits with mom, but then he would exceed them and buy more gifts than was allowed.  He encouraged mom to pursue her talents and interests.  He liked to share her accomplishments. 

When we were young kids, he would drive the family every few weeks to Richfield to look after Grandma Bradshaw.  From that, mostly we learned devotion to family, but we also learned, first-hand, how to drive a VW van and that the reward for good behavior is soft ice cream at Frost-T-Freeze.  

For Jenny, he provided answers to questions regarding running injuries and recommended books to read and movies to watch.  For Alexa, he helped with her current events homework, finding newspaper articles for her to use.  For me, my father taught me that, with sufficient determination, a 2-wheel drive vehicle can be pushed further up a mountain trail than a 4-wheel drive and that no Christmas tree worth cutting down can be found at an elevation of less than 8,000 feet, in snow less than 3 feet deep, or nearer to the road than 1 mile.

Lastly, I will read to you, verbatim, my mother’s contribution to this talk.

“My description of your father:

My soulmate, my sweetheart, my better half.  He made me laugh, he brought me joy, he gave me purpose.  A strong man, a steady man, a valiant servant.

My support, my confidante, my best friend.  He shared my highs, he cradled my lows, he stood by me. A devoted husband, a loving father, a proud grandfather.

My soul mate, my sweetheart, my better half. 

Love, Mom.”