Dale Holyoak
Memorial Service
December
8, 2018
Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
401
N. Westlink, Wichita, Kansas
Ushers – Jace Holyoak (grandson)/Matthew
Brownell (grandson-in-law)
Organist – Lacey Brownell (granddaughter)
Chorister – Arwynn Jones (granddaughter)
Conducting – Bishop Michael Chavez
Opening
song – #223 Have I Done Any Good?
Opening
prayer – Kenny
Johnson (grandson-in-law)
Life
Sketch – Mark
Holyoak (son)/John Bazzelle (family friend)
Poem – Richard Sinclair (family
friend)
Special
Musical Number –
I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go –
Arwynn Jones & Lacey Brownell
Church
Service – Kerry
Holyoak (son) – Written by Alan Holyoak (son – unable to attend)
Closing
Remarks – Bishop
Michael Chavez
Closing
song – #100 Nearer My God to Thee
·
Congregation
to sing first three verses.
·
Joe
Bazzelle (family friend) to sing final verse acapella in the Cheyenne Indian
language which Dale learned on his mission. He sang it many times over the
years including in the Oklahoma City Temple during his service as a temple
worker.
Closing
prayer – Randy
Jones (son-in-law)
Bill Brown (one of Dad's favorite poems that describes him very well)
Bill Brown made a million,
Bill Brown think of that,
A boy who started as poor as a rat,
He howed for the neighbors,
Did jobs by the day,
But Bill made a million, or near it they say.
You can't understand it? Well neither can I.
But then I remember and now I know why,
The bell might be ringing, the dinner horn blow,
But Bill always hoed to the end of the row.
He worked for my father, that you may recall.
He wasn't a wonder no not that at all.
He couldn't out hoe me or cover more ground,
or hoed any cleaner or beat me around.
In fact, I was better in one way I know.
One toot from the kitchen and home I'd go.
But Bill always hoed to the end of the row.
He used to get hungry out there in the corn.
When you walk about music, what equals the horn?
A horn yelling dinner, potatoes 'n green, pork 'n
A horn yelling dinner, potatoes 'n green, pork 'n
tomatoes, gravy and beans.
Now I ain't blaming anyone for quitting on time.
To stop to the music that ain't no crime.
But as for the million this much I do know,
Bill Brown always hoed to the end of the row.
(Written by Dad, beneath the poem: "With perseverance the very odds and ends of time may be worked up into results of the greatest value.")
Life Sketch delivered by Mark Holyoak:
Good afternoon. My name is Mark Holyoak.
I am Dale Holyoak’s youngest son. On behalf of the family I’d like to say “thank
you” for coming to support my family and to honor my dad.
I also want to thank my good friend John
Bazzelle who is on the program and standing by to relieve me if I can’t make it
through this. I’ll just go to the bullpen to call in the right-hander, if
needed, and he’s promised to carry on in my place.
Dale Maxwell Holyoak was born on October
12, 1929, in Cedar City, Utah just 17 days before Black Tuesday, the day the
stock market crashed which triggered the Great Depression. That period of time
forced many Americans to work hard and use every ounce of every resource they
had until they were completely used up. Dad lived by that concept, and fully
gave of himself, throughout his entire life.
He always stood out in a crowd. As a
young child, his hair was bright, bright blond. You could even call it white,
or at least his mother did. She would go to a crowded play area and easily pick
out her boy. She said she would look for the “black” boy with the “white” hair.
Dad apparently didn’t like to wear a shirt or shoes in the summer and had a
deep, dark tan.
Dad’s tales from his younger years are
too numerous to relate but these words from his autobiography, extracted from
different experiences, give you an idea what he was like:
“I probably got a paddling.”
“Grandpa thought I should learn to fight
to get ready for life’s challenges.”
“It seemed we tried to eat dirt one
time.”
“I think I got another spanking.”
“One day a girl and her brother got in a
fight. I thought the boy was hurting the girl so I tried to get him to stop.
Then the girl turned on me and they were both fighting me. I decided to never
enter a family argument again.”
“We went barefoot all summer.”
“Mother was mad.”
“Mother was drinking. We were coming
down the little hill…the streetcar was coming north…neither stopped. The
collision was hard enough my head shattered the windshield. I spent a week or
two in bed.”
“I got a BB gun for Christmas. It hit a
picture window. A man was very upset.”
“I know what I would’ve done to such an
ornery little kid.”
“I had never boxed before. He loosened
one of my front teeth and it came out.”
“Then electricity came. It was like a
little miracle.”
“Keith was bigger. I pulled my arm back
and knocked him down. Keith didn’t get mad and clean my plow.”
“Grandma told me not to walk in the
ditch with bare feet but I was tough. I stepped on some broken glass.”
“I probably got a spanking that time too.”
“I probably got a spanking that time too.”
“I got into a fight with Earl Ramsey. I
had him down in the ditch until his brother Rob and a sister pulled me off and
held me while he pounded me.”
“We got to Skutumpah Creek to get a
drink. We drank the water the sheep were walking in. Yuck!”
“I had a guitar. I learned to pick a
tune, namely ‘You are my sunshine.’”
“Mother tried to teach me to tap dance…I
didn’t like to do that.”
“One day I got in a fist fight with a
Mexican boy named Pancho, by the bus stop, and got the best of him.”
Lastly…“It’s a wonder I didn’t get
killed.”
Here’s one instance that sizes up the
little stinker:
Dad’s words: “I do remember noticing
that Grandma Maxwell had a small paper, perhaps foil-wrapped package of
chocolate candy. It seems like she gave me a piece one day, then put it back up
in the cupboard. Later I went to the room, found it and ate several pieces.
Then strange things begin to happen to me. I needed to go to the bathroom
really bad, and time after time. Grandma asked who had gotten onto her
cupboard, but I didn’t tell her I had. The chocolate was Ex-lax. That was a
lesson for me!”
While surrounded by extended family most
of his early years, life at home was difficult and broken. Dad’s parents
divorced just before he entered third grade. In fourth grade alone, he attended
seven different schools. During his youth, he lived in Glendale, Utah,
Panguitch, Parowan, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Tucson, Fresno, Yakima (twice),
Olympia, Spokane, Orderville, Cedar City and other locations. He lived with his
mother, stepfather, grandparents, other grandparents, father, aunts, uncles and
other family members.
On October 7, 1938, just before his 9th
birthday, Dad was baptized in Hidden Lake just up above Glendale, Utah. He wore
overalls, and years later told me felt he almost froze to death, still drenched
in water while returning to town in the back of a speeding pickup.
Dad was athletic and played football,
softball, tennis and competed in the mile run in high school. He also excelled
at throwing horseshoes. His classmates gave him the nickname “Casey,” but not
because he struck out.
Many of you here who know Dad, know him
as a “city boy.” He was anything but. He started working at age 7 and continued
right up to when he left on a mission. His jobs included hauling water, raking
and stacking hay, hoeing weeds, herding sheep and cattle, digging trenches to
move culinary water into town for the first time, chopping wood, loading grain
onto wagons, planting and pruning fruit trees, planting and harvesting gardens,
working potato fields, operating a two-man chainsaw on a lumber crew, working
in a sawmill, working in the killing room at a turkey plant, picking peaches,
milking dairy cows for months on end, working at a gas station, picking cotton,
mowing lawns, tying fleeces on a sheep-shearing crew in Montana and North
Dakota, working in a cannery and a cafeteria, working at F-W Woolworths, and
many other jobs.
Dale learned many skills with his hands
but also started to develop a love of learning in school. His favorite
English-related course he ever took was Latin in 11th grade.
He hated the drinking habits of his
mother and stepfather. One day, after years of frustration, it boiled over. Dad
had enough so at age 16 he didn’t tell anyone, cashed a savings bond, bought a
bus ticket and left Spokane for a 1,000-mile trip all by himself back to
Glendale. Once there, he re-entered school and played on an overmatched,
winless football team his senior year at Valley High School but did manage to
score once on a 20-yard touchdown reception.
At age 17, he went hunting on a Sunday,
tracked a mule deer buck, and because of that got separated from his father and
uncle, and shot it at dusk. Instead of dragging the buck up the hill he just
came down, he thought it easier to drag it down to a different roadway. It got
dark and he was very tired so he laid down on the buck in the snow and went to
sleep. After all, in his words, “I wasn’t going to leave him for some
California hunter to get.” Dad woke up cold in the middle of the night, fired
three shots, and then three more but heard nothing in response. He was worried
and lost. He prayed and promised that if the Lord would help him get back to
town safely, he would never hunt on Sunday again. He came over a hill and saw
lights below thinking it was lanterns of men looking for him but it was the
reflection of stars on a small lake. Continuing to hike by moonlight, he eventually
meandered into the camp of some California hunters. They asked if he was the
lost Holyoak boy. He replied, “Yes.” And he never hunted on Sunday again.
After graduating from high school, Dale
attended Washington State College in Pullman, Washington, and then received a
call to serve in the Central States mission.
After returning home, he worked at a gas
station in Cedar City. Two men came in to get a fill-up. They then pointed a
pistol at him and forced him into their car and then cleaned the currency out
of the till. As they drove away with him, he was trembling so they asked if he
was afraid. “Well,” he said, “this sort of thing doesn’t happen every day.” As
the ride continued Dad thought, “The Lord has called me on a mission. He will
protect me.” They asked if he had any money on him. Dad said $9 so they took
five, left him $4 and said to let three cars go by before trying to stop any.
They let him out, he let three cars go by, got a ride back to town, called police,
gave them a description, they were captured, he identified them in jail the
following morning and the men got two years in prison.
With the Lord’s help, Dad made a
decision to serve a full-time mission which he later called the “turning point
of his life.” I’ll leave those details to Kerry but I wanted to relate one
story.
Dad developed a deep love for the Native
people and their history. Of course, he took part in baptisms, and many
gospel-related discussions and meetings but he also attended powwows and family
gatherings. Among others, he made friends with an Indian couple in Oklahoma
that created their own jewelry. Ten years after his mission, he returned to Oklahoma
to visit with Mom, Kerry and Alan when that same man and woman, about to bury their
deceased grandson the old Indian way, gave Dad THIS TURQUOISE RING which
he proudly wore the rest of his life. A prized possession, Dad often wondered
if he was unofficially adopted into the family that day.
Toward the end of his mission, Dad was especially
concerned about what he should do as an occupation during his life. He read
this in D&C 88:79: “Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that
you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in
the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the Kingdom of God, that
are expedient for you to understand: Of things both in heaven and in the earth,
and under the earth.”
Dad wrote “The words rang in my ears by
the Spirit, answering my question. I had gotten my only ‘A’ in college in
geology, and found out they pay people to be geologists so I decided to become
a geologist. And I worked at that over 35 years in a vocation I love.”
During my youth and college years, Dad
told me numerous times about the key to being happy with a career. He said,
“You just need to find a job where you say, ‘You mean I get paid to do that?’”
He knew that to be true because he lived it.
As Elder Holyoak left the mission field,
his mission president urged him to seek out a wife and a career and to continue
to preach, expound, exhort and to serve. Dad felt intimately compelled to do
so.
About a year later, the fall of 1953,
Dad was giving serious consideration to marrying Mom. His words: “At that time,
Illena Robinson was 20 years of age, approximately 5 feet 6 inches tall, with
greenish gray eyes, dark brown hair and medium complexion. Illena was pretty,
and possessed a calm, cheerful personality, a nice face and figure, and one of
the most radiant smiles I have ever seen, a smile that seemed to come straight
from her heart and to permeate her whole being. Combined with these attributes
were unquestionable purity, frugality and levelheadedness, which greatly
contributed to our well-being in later years. (She was also, I later learned,
the best cook in town.)”
On November 14, 1953 (Mom’s 21st
birthday) Dad arrived in Glendale in southern Utah around 10:15 to 10:30 at
night. She was still up. Dad’s words: “I told her there were probably a lot of
things I probably should say, but couldn’t think of any of them, which was
true, except to say ‘Happy Birthday,’ and reached in my pocket and handed her a
little box containing the engagement ring. She was surprised and happy. She
accepted the ring, and the engagement was official.”
They were married May 29, 1954 in the
St. George Temple. After a reception, they drove 120 miles to the north. Again,
Dad’s words, “We got the last room at the old hotel in Panguitch, but it didn’t
have a lock on the door. It was not the ideal situation. The following morning
I had a splotchy rash all over my skin. I thought, ‘Oh no! We are married for
eternity and I’m allergic to my wife! (The splotches quickly went away and
never came back.)”
One of my favorite family tales happened
when Mom and Dad lived in the Sawtooth Valley Ranger Station in Idaho. Mom
caught hundreds of fish in a small stream to help feed a yet-to-be-born Kerry
still inside of her. One night in the dark, Dad went out in the pasture to look
after the horses. He heard a splash and found a fish that got caught up in the
irrigation ditch and was trying to swim across the pasture. He conked it out,
went inside and told Mom he had a big fish. She saw it and wasn’t impressed. A
couple of days later, he saw a large Dolly Vardon–a big trout, caught it, took
it to the cabin and told Mom he had another big fish that he caught with a
shovel. “Oh, like the one the other day?” she dead-panned. This time she was
impressed because as he showed, it stretched from the height of one of the beds
all the way to the floor.
Mom and Dad’s family grew as Dad’s
career did the same. Kerry was born and then Dad graduated from Utah State several
months later. He worked for Mobil Oil or Mobil-related companies in California,
Salt Lake City, Durango, Colorado and New Orleans. Alan, Amy and I joined the
clan along the way. Dad eventually hired on with Koch Industries. We were here in
Wichita for three years, got transferred north to Calgary, Alberta, for three
years, and then the family returned here in 1975 and lived here ever since.
As a petroleum geologist, Dad developed
an ability to understand oil drilling test results. In fact, he developed an
engineering formula of sorts where he could plug in those results and
determine, with high certainty, whether an oil well would produce. No one else
had figured out how to do that. The engineers at work asked him how he, a
geologist, not an engineer, came up with it. Koch Industries benefited and
exploded in growth and success.
A few quick examples about Dad’s athletic
ability. I distinctly remember watching Dad play softball as a young kid. In
one game, he went to the plate left-handed and pounded a home run over the
right fielder’s head. The next time up, he got heckled a bit for batting
right-handed. So he promptly drove the ball over the left fielder’s head for a
home run.
Just the other day as we sat around as a
family, Kerry told the story when he was a teenager. His ward youth softball
team won the stake tournament. Their “reward” was to take on the men’s champion—also
from Wichita First Ward. Kerry said Dad jacked three home runs and the seniors
trounced the juniors.
One of the highlights of my softball
life was just before my mission when Dad came out of “retirement” to play
softball again with all three of his boys. He was our pitcher. Even though us
boys purchased a brand new, and much larger glove for him, Dad stayed to what
he knew to be reliable and true—this old, four-fingered, pro design, e-z flex,
Jerry Lumpe signed Spalding glove. Oh yeah, when he stepped to the plate he
could still rip that ball in his 50s—just ask Buck Balzer.
Dad served dutifully and faithfully by
serving the Lord and his fellow men while magnifying a wide array of church
callings his entire life. Kerry will hit some of those highlights too in just a
few minutes.
I will say this. As a bishop, Dad was
fiercely loyal to his youth and looked out for us like a mother chicken
overseeing her baby chicks. The Wichita First Ward priests quorum had no active
priests until I turned 16 but then an amazing transformation took place. It
grew and grew and grew thanks to the Hooper brothers, the baptism of the Swinks
and Corbetts and Jeff, the Bazzelle boys moved up in age, the baptism of the
Greenlee brothers and a few others who came of age. Dad was also our biggest
fan. He helped mold us into better priesthood holders and better young men.
He counseled us when we needed it…like
the time a pack of us priests decided it was a good idea to raid Girl’s Camp at
about 2 o’clock in the morning and we got caught by adult leadership and were
told our punishment was we had to report to our bishop. Dad sat us down in our
living room and told us, “I know you. I trust you. Now don’t do that again.”
And we didn’t.
He also cheered us on–literally. He
attended our basketball games and our softball games. And Yes Tim
Epperson and Kerry, that includes that one game that us juniors took
you seniors out behind the woodshed in city league softball play. Every game,
Dad’s voice was heard from the stands!
If you haven’t surmised already, he was
also highly competitive. Back in the days of the old youth roadshows, it was
either my junior or senior year that we put on what we thought was a flawless
performance. When the curtain dropped, the crowd exploded in cheers and we were
all so excited backstage. There were high fives and hugs. We knew we did our
best and we expected to be rewarded likewise. But when the announcement was
made, the judges gave the best overall performance and production to another
ward’s youth group. Dad was a-n-g-r-y! He wanted to know who the judges were
and what their qualifications were. He needed to talk to them right then and
straighten them out. It bothered him. In his mind, his youth had been wronged
and it just didn’t sit well with him…for years. (He was right, by the way.)
Dad also knew how to have fun with his
youth. I distinctly remember seeing Dad hit the dance floor at our youth dances.
As I watched his style, which he undoubtedly perfected while serving among the
Indians in Oklahoma, I fully expected thick, dark clouds would gather above him
and rain would soon fall, though remarkably, that never happened.
Dad also had several habits or
mannerisms that were distinctively Dad. One of them (ahem ahem) he almost
always (ahem) cleared his (ahem) throat before speaking. Why is that? Years ago
he fasted both food and water for three consecutive days. Not drinking water
over that stretch permanently dried out his throat which is why he constantly
tried to clear it.
And Dad pulled out a classic-to-him line
now and then when one of his kids asked a question. For example, “Dad, I’m
going to go over to John’s house and then we’re going to go to Lawrence Stadium
and catch an Aeroes game, okay?” So what was his response? “Why?...sure!” Even
my kids use that line again and again.
Dad worked and served and loved to serve
and loved to work. He was direct and blatantly honest. He owns a pickup. Why? Well,
to help move people in and out of the ward and for other acts of hands-on,
roll-up-your-sleeves service. That’s just who he was. Brother Sinclair will
have more on that in just a moment.
To Dad, working and working hard,
praying and praying hard, and offering support and guidance to help bless the
lives of others was his way to show his love to God, his family and his fellow
man. And let me biasedly add that he excelled at it.
Testimony
Church Service - Written by Alan Holyoak & Delivered by Kerry Holyoak:
Hello. My name is Kerry Holyoak.
Thank you for taking time to
be here this afternoon to celebrate the life of my father, Dale Maxwell Holyoak.
My mother asked my brother
Alan to gather some thoughts about our father’s faith and service in the
Church, and she asked me to share them with you.
Anyone who knows Dale Holyoak
knows that he had three main loves in his life: his family, his work and his
faith.
You’ve already heard about my
Dad’s life, but I’m going to share some thoughts about his faith and service in
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
You may not know this, but Dad’s
original wishes included only a graveside service in his hometown of Parowan,
Utah, where he will be buried. When my
brother Mark told his good friend John Bazzelle about this plan John was shocked
and exclaimed something to the effect of (paraphrasing), “But he’s a legend!” This, together with her own impressions led our
mother to rethink things and have a memorial service for him.
Our dad may be upset right
now because he did NOT want a funeral.
Well Dad, that’s just too bad, you’re having one anyway! There are many people in this area who love
and respect you, and they need a chance to pay their respects, celebrate your
life and say good-bye.
All right, back to Dad. Dad loved the gospel of Jesus Christ and The
Church. When you couple this love with
an intense work ethic and desire to help out, you have a power to reckon
with.
The Church was the one dependable
part of his childhood and teenage years.
As you know, Dad didn’t have a stable family life. After his parents divorced when he was young he
lived with one set of grandparents or the other, aunts and uncles, and
occasionally with one parent or the other.
But through it all, the Church was always there.
By the time Dad was 20, he
was at a personal crossroads. His life
to this point had been full of discouragement and disappointment, and as he
prayed He told the Lord in no uncertain terms that if He did not call him on a
mission that he was going to join the Army.
A short time later Dad’s bishop invited him in for a chat and let him know
that he’d been impressed to call him on a mission. So that’s what he did. Dad did have one concern however, how to pay
for it.
Both of Dad’s parents were
born and raised in the Church, but neither parent was active in the Church. Yet, Grandpa Vern would go to the bishop at
the end of each year and settle his tithing.
When my Dad found out about this, he asked Grandpa, “Why did you do
that? If I were not active in the Church, I wouldn’t pay my tithing.” To this Grandpa replied, “I know the Church
is true, and I know that the principle of tithing is true. And besides that, I’ll tell you something
else. You take care of the Lord’s work
and He’ll take care of yours!” And then Grandpa
told Dad that he would support him on his mission.
This counsel from Grandpa
became a mantra for life for Dad. “You take care of the Lord’s work and He’ll
take care of yours.” Dad did his best to
do this throughout his life.
And so, he prepared his
mission papers. Dad never told anyone
but the Lord this, but he had a deep desire and strong hope to serve a mission
to the Indians (Native Americans). His
mission call finally arrived. He opened
the envelope and read his call, but he was sadly disappointed that he was not
called to serve in the Southwest Indian Mission, the only large area with
Native Americans he was aware of at the time.
Instead he was called to serve in the Central States Mission. Dad nevertheless accepted the call and
prepared to serve. At the time, The
Central States Mission included Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri.
At his missionary farewell
Dad said, “I am not 100% sure that this is the only true Church, but I will
find out about it.” Well, we know how
that turned out. If there is anyone out there who does not believe that my Dad
knows that the Church is true, through and through, they either do not know him
well or they were simply not paying attention.
When the time came, Grandpa
drove Dad to Salt Lake City where they attended two sessions of October General
Conference and the next day Grandpa dropped Dad off at the Mission Home. Dad was one of 400 missionaries entering the
mission field that week in 1950. A few
days later Dad boarded the train for the 1000-mile trip from Salt Lake City to
Independence, Missouri.
The afternoon of his first
day in the mission home in Independence, Dad’s mission president greeted his
new missionaries and said that there were 100,000 Indians in Oklahoma and he needed
two volunteers to work with them. Dad’s
hand shot up – he was the first volunteer!
The Lord had given Dad the wish of his heart, to work with the Indians. This answer to a young missionary’s prayer
was, in part, the beginning of a turning point in his life. Dad served on Indian reservations in Oklahoma
his entire mission. If you ever noticed
a beautiful silver and turquoise ring that Dad wore, now you know why. It was a gift from the people he served and loved.
During Dad’s mission there
was a “Food Fad” that spread throughout the Church. Many Church members looked well beyond the
mark and became extreme in their observance of the Word of Wisdom. They would not eat chocolate candy, drink hot
chocolate, eat processed sugar, use bleached wheat flour, etc. This was not good. Elder Spencer W. Kimball, then of the Quorum
of the 12 Apostles, was assigned to tour the area and instruct Church members
about proper observance of the Word of Wisdom and to avoid extremism. During this tour, Elder Kimball visited Dad’s
mission and was invited to a meeting on the reservation where Dad was
serving. Dad, his missionary companion,
the mission president and Elder Kimball drove together from Oklahoma City to
Shawnee, Oklahoma, to that meeting, which was only for Native Americans. Dad rode in the back seat of the car, sick with
worry because he wasn’t sure anyone would show up. They travelled through a snow storm on icy
roads to get there. As they drove, Elder
Kimball turned around and said to Dad, “Elder, have a piece of candy.” And, he offered Dad a piece of
chocolate. Dad politely refused because
he was so worried about the meeting and his stomach was tied up in knots. Elder Kimball then said, “HAVE A PIECE OF
CANDY, ELDER!” and so he did J.
Though it was difficult,
sometimes extremely so, Dad loved his mission and the people he served. His testimony solidified and he developed a
deep love for the Church and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Dad told us that there were
two main parts of his life, his life before his mission and his life after his
mission. Before his mission, his life
was full of disappointment and discouragement.
After his mission it was largely full of happiness and success,
sometimes unbelievably so. Dad’s
missionary service was also a turning point for my Grandpa Vern. Grandpa returned to full activity in the Church,
serving in many callings and he continued that activity throughout the rest of
his life.
I never saw Dad’s faith or Church
activity waiver. In fact, he thrived on
Church-related service, especially physical labor. My earliest memory of this kind of service
was when I was a young boy and Dad donated many hours of physical labor toward
the construction of a chapel where we lived in Louisiana. Of course, he took us with him whenever there
was work to be done.
Dad also served in many
Church callings, including as a teacher, ward and stake missionary, home
teacher, scout leader (heaven card = punched right there), bishop, young men’s
leader, as a member of the high council and many, many more. Though some of his callings were fairly high
profile, he would be the first to say that it’s not your calling but how you serve
that matters.
Dad not only loves to work,
but he loves to work in a way that helps someone or the Church. I don’t know why it took me this long to
realize this, but work is the way Dad showed his love. I’ve watched him, and it’s almost physically
painful for him when he cannot help when there is work to do.
Yes, Dad loved work and he
wanted his children to learn to love to work too. I remember Dad dragging my brothers and me to
a seemingly endless string of Church welfare farm work assignments. I remember one particularly miserable day in
the middle of a blistering Kansas summer.
That assignment included cleaning out a stinky, STINKY barn and cement
hog pens. The weather that day approximated
conditions on the surface of the sun, but Dad worked happily and steadily all
day long, much to our chagrin, because we knew we were not going home until the
work assignment was done.
Dad’s practice of hard work and
Church service never ended. I have heard
ward members say that whenever there was a Church work assignment, they knew
that Dad would be there. And they were
right. For example, my family and I visited
Mom and Dad during the summer of 2017. The
day after we arrived Dad announced that he was off to help a woman in the ward
who needed help moving furniture from her apartment, dropping it off at another
place, picking up more furniture from storage unit, and so on. I tried to get Dad to skip that work project
and let younger men do it instead. He wouldn’t
hear of it, and off he went. How old was
he? 88.
Yep, 88 years old but working like he thought he was 50 years
younger.
Dad’s devotion to the Church
and the Gospel went far beyond physical labor.
Dad spent innumerable hours on family history work and indexing. He and my mom indexed tens of thousands of
names, perhaps hundreds of thousands. This
makes me think that he had quite the welcoming committee on the other side of
the veil. What a thought! If you need help from the other side of the
veil, one way to do that is probably to do indexing. That’s a way to get a heavenly fan club
quickly!
In addition, Dad spent time
researching and writing histories of several of his ancestors, and giving
copies of these to all of his children.
Mom and Dad served faithfully
for over 16 years in the Oklahoma City Temple.
How dedicated were they? Mom said
that they drove down to Oklahoma City to the temple for their interview to
become temple workers on a snowy day.
When they drove into the temple parking lot there were no tracks in the
snow because the temple was closed due to weather. I guess the temple presidency just assumed
that Mom and Dad wouldn’t make the drive down from Wichita due to the
weather. But they didn’t yet know Dad.
Dad was a student of the
scriptures. He even developed his own
marking system of the scriptures that highlights principles and promises, and
he wrote a book addressing that topic.
The pages of his personal set of scriptures are almost entirely covered
in blue or yellow markings noting verses related to those topics.
Some of you know that there
were a few things that Dad REALLY loved to talk about. These included the petroleum industry, the
Mormon Battalion, family history and anything having to do with Native
Americans. Though he had favorite
topics, he was knowledgeable about all aspects of the gospel. Anyone who sat in a gospel doctrine class
with Dad knows this. Whenever he had
something to share, which was often, he would raise his hand halfway with his
index finger extended and utter an audible and enthusiastic “Oh, Oh, Oh…” to
get the teacher’s attention. Some of you
are chuckling …you know what I’m talking about.
Occasionally Dad’s devotion
to the Church went a bit too far. I
guess you could say that his zeal for the Church occasionally reached
overzealous status. My Mom tells this
story.
This story took place back in
the days when each member of the ward was given a budget assessment they were
asked to pay in addition to their tithing, fast offerings, etc. Funds from this assessment provided the operating
budget for the ward for the year. One
year the bishop told Dad that they were going to come up short on the ward
budget and he didn’t know how they were going to make up the difference. Dad asked, “How much do you need?” The bishop replied, “$5,000.” Dad pulled out his checkbook and wrote a
check for $5,000, just like that.
That’s awesome, except for
two things. First, Mom is the one who
keeps track of the checkbook and bank accounts and Dad had no idea how much was
in their checking account. No, there was
not $5,000 in there at the time, and second, he didn’t tell Mom about the
$5,000 check. Uh-oh! So, when she was out and about running
errands, doing shopping, etc., she continued to write checks for things, you
know, business as usual…or it was…until…checks started bouncing all over the
place!
While it’s important to be
dedicated, it’s also important to be smart about it. Thanks for the tip Mom!
Lastly, I want to tell you
about my parents’ mission. Most of you
may not know this but they have served a mission.
Over the years I would ask Dad
if he and mom planned to serve a mission after he retired. The last time I asked, now many years ago, Dad
replied, “What do you think we have been doing for the past 40 years?!” Good call.
Dad viewed his entire life as a mission and ministry for the Lord. As a result, he had significant positive impacts
on many, many people. This is evidenced
by those of you who took time out of a December Saturday afternoon to pay your
respects and to honor the life of Dale Holyoak.
I am so proud of my Dad, for
his good life and for his example as a husband, father, professional, worker,
and disciple of Jesus Christ.
Thank you for being here.
And…yes…John Bazzelle, he IS a
legend.
Close.
