Service to others,
from a talk by Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone
Elder Featherstone recounted the following story in General
Conference of April 1973. The story is told in the words of his good friend,
Les Goates:
"For me, the welfare program began
in the old field west of Lehi on the Saratoga Road in the autumn of 1918, that
terribly climactic year of World Ward I during which more than 14 million
people died of that awful scourge 'the black plague', or Spanish influenza.
"Winter came early that year and
froze much of the sugar beet crop in the ground. My dad and brother Francis
were desperately trying to get out of the frosty ground one load of beets each
day which they would plow out of the ground, cut off the tops, and toss the
beets, one at a time, into the huge red beet wagon and then haul the load off
to the sugar factory. It was slow and tedious work due to the frost and the
lack of farm help, since brother Floyd and I were in
the army and Francis, or Franz, as everybody called him was too young for the
military service.
"While they were thusly engaged in
harvesting the family's only cash crop and were having their evening meal one
day, a phone call came through from our eldest brother, George Albert,
superintendent of the State industrial School in Ogden, bearing the tragic news
that Kenneth, nine-year-old son of our brother Charles, the school farm
manager, had been stricken with the dread flu, and after only a few hours of
violent sickness, had died on his father's lap; and would dad please come to
Ogden and bring the boy home and lay him away in the family plot in the Lehi
Cemetery.
"My father cranked up his old
Chevrolet and headed for
" 'Take my
boy home,' muttered the stricken young father, 'and lay him away in the family
plot and come back for me tomorrow.'
"Father brought Kenneth home, made a
coffin in his carpenter shop, and mother and our sisters placed a cushion and
lining in it, and then dad went with Franz and two kind neighbors to dig the
grave. So many were dying the families had to do the grave digging. A brief
graveside service was all that was permitted.
"The folks had scarcely returned
from he cemetery when the telephone rang again and
George Albert was on the line with another terrifying message: Charles had died
and two of his beautiful little girls - Vesta, 7, and
Elaine, 5 - were critically ill, and two babies - Raeldon,
4, and Pauline, 3 - had been stricken.
"Our good cousins, the Larkin
undertaking people, were able to get a casket for Charles and they sent him
home in a railroad baggage car. Father and young Franz brought the body from
the railroad station and place it on the front porch of our old country home
for an impromptu neighborhood viewing but folks were afraid to come near the
body of a black plague victim. Father and Francis meanwhile had gone with
neighbors to get the grave ready and arrange a short service in which the
great, noble spirit of Charles Hyrum Goates was
commended into the keeping of his Maker.
"Next day my sturdy, unconquerable
old dad was called on still another of his grim missions - this time to bring
home Vesta, the smiling one with the raven hair and
big blue eyes.
"When he arrived at the home he
found Juliett, the grief-crazed mother, kneeling at
the crib of darling little Elaine, the blue-eyed baby angel with the gold
curls. Juliett was sobbing wearily and praying: 'Oh
Father in heaven, not this one, please! Let me keep my
baby! Do not take any more of my darlings from me!'
"Before father arrived home with Vesta the dread word had come again. Elaine had gone to
join her daddy, brother Kenneth, and sister Vesta. And so it was that father made yet another
heartbreaking journey to bring home and lay away a fourth member of his family,
all within the week.
"The telephone did not ring the
evening of the day they laid away Elaine nor were there any more sad tidings of
death the next morning. It was assumed that George A. and his courageous
companion Della, although afflicted, had been able to save the little ones Raeldon and Pauline; and it was such a relief that cousin
Reba Munns, a nurse, had been able to come in and
help.
"After breakfast dad said to Franz,
'Well, son, we had better get down to the field and see if we can get another
load of beets out of the ground before they get frozen in any tighter. Hitch up
and let's be on our way.'
"Francis drove the four-horse outfit
down the driveway and dad climbed aboard. As they drove along the
"On the last wagon was the town
comedian, freckle-faced Jasper Rolfe. He waved a
cheery greeting and called out, 'That's all of 'em,
Uncle George.'
"My dad turned to Francis and said,
'I wish it was all of ours.'
"When they arrived at the farm gate,
Francis jumped down off the big read beet wagon and opened the gate as we drove
onto the field. He pulled up, stopped the team, paused a moment and scanned the
field, from left to right and back and forth - an lo
and behold, there wasn't a sugar beet on the whole field. Then it dawned on him
what Jasper Rolfe meant when he called out, 'That's
all of 'em, Uncle George.'
"Then dad got down off the wagon,
picked up a handful of the rich, brown soil he loved so much, and then in his thumbless left hand a beet top, and he looked for a moment
at these symbols of his labor, as if he couldn't believe his eyes.
"Then father sat down on a pile of
beet tops - this man who brought four of his loved ones home for burial in the
course of only six, days; made caskets, dug graves, and even helped with he
burial clothing - this amazing man who never faltered, nor flinched, nor
wavered throughout this agonizing ordeal - sat down on a pile of beet tops and
sobbed like a little child.
"Then he arose, wiped his eyes with
his big, red bandanna handkerchief, looked up at the sky, and said:
"Thanks, Father, for the elders of our ward.'"
--- The Ensign, July 1973, pages 36 and 37.
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