As a youth I attended the L.D.S. conference in Salt Lake City a time or so with Father. I recall that after one of the sessions we sauntered over to the monuments of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. My Father didn't say much, but he lingered at the monument of Hyrum Smith - for whom he was named.

As a boy, I asked Father to tell me some missionary stories. I had asked him before, with no response. Later on I asked him again, and after a pause I asked him why he wouldn't tell me some missionary stories. With tears running down his face, he replied: "My mission was a disappointment to me." He related that while there he got malaria; and they were afraid they might lose him, and so released him and sent him home. But he stated that he had sent sons on missions, and hoped that someday he "could finish his mission." (Later on in life he filled two more missions.)

In 1965 my wife and I journeyed into Tennessee. I had had a strong desire to visit the area where my Father had labored as a missionary while in his youth. It was a most rewarding experience. I felt that my Father's spirit was with us while we were there.

A few months before Father got hurt and lost his life in 1938, one day while we were chatting, he mentioned that while enroute to his field of labor, on his first mission, he visited David Whitmer, in Richmond, Missouri. I asked what he said. He replied that it was about what is written in the fly-leaf of the Book of Mormon. Naturally, I was just thrilled.

A few years before he died, and while in Salt Lake City, Father was met by a man who asked him if he belonged to the dominant church here, and then informed my Father that he was to make monument of the Angle Moroni for the Hill Cumorah,

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and he asked Father if he would be his model. Father gladly accepted. How grateful he must have been for this great honor.

While Father was in the Dee Hospital in June, 1938, and until his passing, July 2, 1938, I visited him everyday. On one occasion he said about these words: "Well, I guess that to use your time and talent to the best advantage, should be your highest aim."

A number of days after Father's funeral. Uncle Nathan and I were sitting on a log overlooking much of Farmington to the west, and enjoying the setting sun. Uncle Nathan mentioned that in years past, the children of Ezra T. Clark would occasionally meet and visit. On one such occasion, when it came Father's turn to make a comment, he said that he considered himself among the least; but the Lord had blessed him, and that he had as much of this world's goods as any normal man could ask for; but he would rather the Lord would take it all away, if it would mean that his children would serve HIM better. Uncle Nathan told me, that to this, he said to himself: "The Lord will take you up on that."

It has seemed to some of us, that in the closing years of Father's life, he became more mellow, gentle, understanding, and appreciative.

The gospel was his foundation; family, service, and Eternal Life, his goals.

He was a stalwart. And "... having been born of goodly parents..." I am proud of him, I love him, and am honored to be his son.

Baby's Booties

Told to me by Alpha.

A while after our daughter Carolyn was born, my Father called at Mother Dietz' home in Salt lake

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