A TRIBUTE TO FATHER:

You know the old saying, "My Dad is the best Dad," well this is true in my case. When I was very young I admired you-very much, no matter what the situation you could always cope with it. You were a Jack of all trades and a master of many. You helped us very much starting out in Monteview and since. We sure enjoyed having you stay with us. I think you're the hardest working man for your age anywhere. You and Dad Curtis came out and built a room on our old house for us which gave us three rooms and made our little house

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seem so much better. I don't know if we ever told you but we really appreciated this and all the other help you gave us starting out. I appreciate the example of hard work, honesty, spirituality, and faith in our Heavenly Father, prayerfulness, cleanliness of body and mind which you always tried to teach us by your actions.

I think your Guardian angel is with you all the time. I was sure glad of this one time. I was about a first grader and I was riding the tractor with you on the dryfarm. You were pulling a rod weeder and a grain drill behind this. The rod weeder got plugged with weeds and so you jumped off to pull the weeds out and left me to guide the tractor. Well, you got your leg caught in the weeder and it threw you on the ground in front of the drill, I think it was a single disc drill. The drill ran over your whole body. I couldn't get the tractor stopped until it was a few hundred feet down the field. I was sure glad I didn't get it stopped on top of you, any way I thought you were in bad shape, but I think it just knocked your breath out. In a little while you were up and going. You had several close calls like this but always seemed to be protected.

I think most of all I appreciate you as a father for the way you treat my mother. You really spend a lot of time and effort in helping her in the last few years. I think this is great. You're just the best parents of all and YOUR'E THE BEST DAD.

Sincerely with love,

Ralph