My Dad, by Joanna

So many overlapping memories --- First memory, seated in a high chair after Sunday evening services at someone else's house, eating ice cream before riding home in the car after dark, with Dad driving as the lights twinkled by. Running in the sunshine on the lawn at the little house among the orchards near Buena (pronounced Byoo-anna). That house was the first of many construction projects. Dad worked on it when he wasn't working hard elsewhere. I remember the inside walls were unfinished when I had just learned to walk. During that time, Dad was a mechanic at a garage in Toppenish. He also worked for area orchardists, including as a beekeeper.
I remember being happy after I had a little sister, Deanna. We moved to Boise, where Dad and Mom were houseparents at the Christian Children's Home. We ate our meals with everyone else, herded along with the other kids. Later in Boise, Clyde was bit by a black widow spider. When Polly was born, I caught my foot in the bicycle spokes riding double while Mom was in the hospital, so she had two helpless kids. I couldn't walk for about six weeks, and still have the scar on my right ankle. Dad bought a little Vespa-type scooter and took us for rides. Even then, he was trying to save on gas. I also remember when he threw a skillet out the door into a field, because food stuck in it --- Mom retrieved it.
We later moved to a juvenile delinquent home in Boise. One day, Dad climbed up a very tall poplar-type tree to trim the branches, and fell the entire length of the tree as Mom and I watched, scraping the skin off the inside of his legs. He was fortunate it wasn't much worse. Dad taught welding and auto mechanics to the young miscreants, bumping their heads together when they fought. Mom was threatened by one of the younger kids.
When we moved to Iowa, Dad worked very hard as a bag boy in a supermarket and as a mechanic while going to school, studying Greek and other intensive subjects. When David was born, it was touch and go. He was very sick, struggling to breathe with an enlarged thymus gland and subjected to radiation treatments many times the strength used today.
As we drove over the Continental Divide, with Grandma Smith driving the car hooked to the utility trailer through the ice and snow in Wyoming, we spun out and ended up in a snowbank, many of our worldly goods smashed beyond repair. We were glad to be alive. And as we traveled, David got better.
We stayed in the trailer at the farm in West Valley for awhile, then moved into Yakima to the house on 11th Avenue. I've driven by it in recent years --- it seems so small with its flat roof and stucco exterior. Dad was working as a fleet mechanic for Carnation. We traded the 11th Avenue house with Grandma and Grandpa Smith for the West Valley chicken farm.
That was a great place for kids. We had chickens in one of the chicken houses, rabbits in the upstairs of the barn, a huge garden and boarded a couple of horses. During that time, Dad preached at the little Indian mission out by White Swan after the Augustines left.
Wapato was the next move, as Dad helped start a congregation there. The move into that house was a bit protracted. Although the sale went , the people in the house at Wapato took their time leaving. We lived at least a couple of months in the camping trailer Dad had built in the driveway in Yakima. Can you imagine how that must have been for them --- seven kids in a cramped little space?
While at Wapato, we had our own milk and beef, even making our own cottage cheese and butter. The big garden and vegetables from the Elliotts and the Lumaguips and fruit from nearby orchards kept us well fed. I remember Dad getting us up at 6 a.m. during summer vacation to cut milkweed and irrigate the pasture. On the fun side, he took an old wrecked automobile and turned it into a 'tractor' with a seat, and little else, plus a governor on the motor so it couldn't go over 12 mph. For us, driving that thing over the bumps and the irrigation ditches while bringing in the hay was like four-wheelin'.
Dad was a stern disciplinarian, complicated by the fact he worked long hours and Mom was also working, mostly nights. It must have been hard for them, with a tight budget and a bunch of rambunctious kids.
After Deanna coughed her lungs out for a year, we had to move to Arizona. Dad moved us to the Longmark mobile home park --- it was new and connected wtih the trailer manufacturer. Years later, I borrowed a lamp from that Longmark trailer. I had it in my backroom office for several years, but Dad didn't forget that I had it. A couple of years ago, he asked, "Do you still have that lamp?" He said it was all that was left from that trailer, and he wanted to keep track of it because he still had a beef with the trailer's manufacturer.
I remember Dad making complaints or writing letters to Sears or other stores. He had high standards. He also pulled over drunk drivers a couple of times to make a citizen's arrest, with kids in the car. He got a letter of commendation from the police, but they also said maybe he shouldn't tackle law breakers by himself the next time.
When I left home, things were very rough between me and Dad for several years. As his eldest, I had disappointed him. For more than a year and a half, we didn't speak at all. Over time, we became reconciled and I did my best to prove myself to him in my own way. I know that he loved me, to the very end.
Hard-working. High expectations for his children and everyone else. And in the end, forgiveness. Thank you, Dad.