My mom was asked to speak for Father's Day in her home ward. This is her talk. I want to keep it recorded forever.
Father’s Day Talk for Sacrament Meeting by Rita Leckie DeBry June 16th, 2013
Since today is Father’s day, I want to tell you a little about my own father. To understand his life I will need to start with his mother, Ida. Ida, was married at the age of 15 to a man almost twice her age. He was an alcoholic and later deserted the family. She was left a single mother with 6 children at the age of 25. Ida was destitute and her children were taken from her and placed in an orphanage. She then married my grandfather, Lon. The good news was, the children were brought home from the orphanage and they were reunited as a family but the bad news was, he was also an alcoholic. Ida and Lon had another 6 children, my father being one of these. At the age of 56 she died of a stroke. I remember my father often talking tenderly of his sweet mother and the difficult life she had endured. In fact, on his deathbed his last words were, “Momma! Momma!” But my Father never talked about his own father. Occasionally stories would come out - of the abuse the family had suffered at the hands of a mean, alcoholic father and husband. When my father was 15 he left home, bitter and angry, to live with an uncle who was a park ranger in Yellowstone National Park. He worked in the gold mines in the summer and trapped animals for their furs in the winter. When he was 19, he met and fell in love with my mother. She worked at her father’s butcher shop in the mining town of Cooke City, Montana. They had no transportation, so caught a ride with the mailman and eloped to Livingston, to the great disappointment of my devout Mormon grandparents. My father was a good man but he had never had any religious training in his life, so he participated in many of the worldly vices that the people of the world would have had in those days. A few years later my father was baptized at my mother’s encouragement but never become active in church participation.
(I remember him telling me he was baptized right before he left for the war just to put my grandmother at ease incase he died at war.) When the United States entered World War II my father was drafted, leaving my mother with 3 small sons on a cattle ranch where she was the cook. He left to become the rear gunner on a bomber plane in the Pacific for the duration of the war. When he returned home to his family, his 3 little sons didn’t even know him. Shortly after he was home my mother encouraged him to attend a Sacrament meeting.
(One Sunday his 3 sons didn't want to go to church part of their argument to their mom was that 'dad doesn't go to church.' My grandmother says she said some smart comment about his inactivity. My grandfather threw his tools on the ground and said 'Fine, I'll go them.') He was asked to help bless the sacrament; to which he resisted, but ended up at the sacrament table. When it was his turn to offer the sacramental prayer, he knelt down and began to weep. It was several minutes before he was he was even able to speak. He was given understanding, enlightenment and a new heart in those few precious moments, kneeling before the sacrament table.He became a new man. He changed. His family and the church became his focus in life. He took my mother and my 3 brothers to the Cardston temple to be sealed. He honored and magnified his priesthood. We often saw him reading from the scriptures. His testimony grew and matured and he went on to serve in many callings in the church. He served for years as the branch president of a branch in Billings that had over 800 members, of which only 30 individuals were full tithe payers. He also served in the district presidency for many years. He was spiritually mature and was well respected and admired.When the Billings East Stake was formed he was chosen as the stake patriarch, giving over 1,000 blessings before his death in 1996. Six of our children, received their patriarchal blessings at the hands of their grandfather, interesting enough in Cooke City, Montana; the place where it all began over 50 years before, when as a 19 year old boy, he had fallen in love with a young Mormon girl. When a stake patriarch is called he is given a few months to spiritually prepare and put his life in order so he can receive the revelations of the Spirit. I remember my father telling me that the only thing that he had needed to fix in his life, to be ready for this calling, was to forgive his father. It had been many years but the wounds and resentment were still there in his heart. He said what a struggle it had been, but thru the Savior he had been able to do it and felt worthy to proceed with his new calling. Isn’t it interesting that the Lord required this of him? My father had to forgive his father, for his heart to be right with his Heavenly Father. When he received his calling he was even willing to give up his vocation as a pipefitter at the local oil refinery. The men on the site used such profane and vulgar language that he said he could not have these words or thoughts in his minds and serve as a patriarch. The Lord provided a new job for him as a sub-contractor for Honeywell. He was also asked to teach the apprentice pipefitting classes. Financially things were even better for him and my mother.
The reason I tell you this story is to show how far reaching and serious our decisions are. There are many good things that I have learned through my father’s difficult beginnings and his righteous life
#1. People can change! People can stop the cycle of addiction, abuse, and church inactivity that exists in their own families. My Father was a kind and gentle soul. Many times I heard him say “I will never abuse my children.” He knew how it felt! He seldom used physical discipline and he never used his childhood abuse as an excuse for his shortcomings. The Word of Wisdom was stressed in our home. My father would say, “It only takes one drink to become an alcoholic and you could have that alcoholic gene in your body.” One of his sayings was: “There will be no excuses in heaven. There will be people there that had more difficult trials than you did, but they were faithful through it all and they made it.”
#2. Fathers , because this is your day, but also Mothers, Grandfathers and grandmothers – We really do make a difference in the lives of our posterity. Our teachings and examples will have an influence of them! Even though I was raised in an area where there was only a handful of LDS youth, all 5 of my brothers served missions as young men; all 7 children were and are still active. I think how different my life would have been had my father not embraced and lived the Gospel. The Church: that little branch became our life. We knelt every night for family prayer around the table, dinner time was a time of gospel discussions, we had family home evenings, we attended all of our church meetings and activities, and we watched our parents serve faithfully in our branch. We participated and we willingly served along the side of our parents. We all make choices in our lives, of which there are consequences. The sum of those choices and consequences will influence the lives of all those around us and especially those of our family, and of our posterity. We must never be a stumbling block on their path to eternal blessings.
#3. Whenever I am out and about, running errands or when I travel, I always remind myself, “My father was once not a member of this church and even after he was baptized he was an inactive member. How would I have wanted those active in the church to have treated him?” I reply “With absolute love and kindness!” This is how I try to treat all people and especially those not of our faith.”
#4. Our trials can be for our benefit and can serve as a turning point in our lives. My father never spoke of the war and his experiences in the Pacific. They were unpleasant memories and he wanted to forget them. It was not until he was an older man that he would relate war stories to us so they could be recorded and put into his personal history. But - his trials became his blessings! He had been humbled by those experiences in wartime and in battle, to a point that his heart had been softened and the Lord could touch him and teach him.
My life is a wonderful life. It is filled with great joy and gospel blessings. A large part this is because of my father’s (and my dear mother’s) choices and their righteous example. My father made a decision to love the Lord, to be faithful in all things, and to make the gospel his life. I admire and love him for that. I’m sure it was not a natural or easy choice for him. But he showed the path for his children, grand children and now great grand children to follow. And we, literally hundreds, now rejoice in the blessings of the Gospel because of him and our mother. There are more happy endings to this story. Let’s go back to the beginning of my talk, to my dear grandmother and my alcoholic grandfather. My father has also blessed their lives by being the instrument to create an eternal family for his own mother and father, his own brothers and sisters. None of them had the Gospel in their lives while on this earth. He forged where his mother and father could not and now through repentance and obedience they also enjoy the eternal blessings of the temple. They too now rejoice in their son, my father, and have found “great joy in their posterity”. Every person on this earth, but especially as fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, we help determine the eternal consequences for thousands of others lives. We must make righteous decisions, we must live virtuous lives, and we must be an example of holiness. It is then that we will be able to look back with joy. We will have the blessings of a clear conscience, peace in our hearts and be able to rejoice with our posterity in His kingdom.
I love my mom. I love my grandfather. They are incredible people.
Words in Italics are mine not my mother's nor part of her talk.
