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Stanley Addison Pemberton
Stanley's High School Graduation Picture |
This is Stanley's Eagle Scout Award. He served as Scout Master of Scout Troop 63, sponsored by the Lion's Club of Tieton, Washington, for a few years |
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In the summer of 1958, I worked with and for my father, Stanley, the entire summer and into the fall. He was paying me a wage and I was paying off my student loan at Washington State College and saving a bit for my mission. We worked nearly every working day at the upper ranch, his apple orchards several miles west of Naches, Washington. Our task was clearing rocks off the new orchards so that cultivation would be more effective and less damaging to the equipment. We loaded rocks onto a large, flat-bad trailer that was designed to carry boxed apples from the orchards to the warehouses. We picked up every stone bigger than two fists put together. Since it was river bottom land, only a few feet higher than the Naches that ran through it, there were a lot of rocks. It was the hardest work I have ever done and the days were long and hot. Velva would fix us a large lunch, a gallon mayonnaise jar, packed full of sandwiches. There were peanut butter, peanut butter and jelly, egg-salad, Spam, and sometimes ham or beef and sometimes a couple pieces of home-made apple pie, depending on what was available in the kitchen. We always put the jar in the irrigation ditch that ran through the place so as to keep it cold. I remember a couple times we did not get it set just right and water would seep in and saturate some of the sandwiches. Even though they were often made with Mom's home-baked bread, they were nearly impossible to eat. We ate as many of them as we could stand first before starting on the sandwiches that were still OK. We worked hard and ate a lot of food for lunches and suppers. Dad estimated that we were moving ten to fifteen tons of rock per day.
A couple times that summer, dad would refuse to eat lunch and when asked why he would just say, "I'm fasting." I was totally shocked. He almost never refused food, even if he wasn't particularly hungry. He worked hard and although his was a lean man, he ate heartily. After two of three of these fasting episodes in the middle of a very hard day's work, he finally told me what was going on. He had joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints several years before, and brought with him an old, well-established habit of swearing when things went badly - a very common thing among farmers everywhere I think. Once in a while I would hear him take the Lord's name in vain, but I do not recall him doing that after joining the church. He evidently was being so strict with his discipline of himself that he wanted to stop even thinking of swearing and when he "slipped", as he put it, he would skip a meal or two to try to bolster his self-control. I was deeply impressed with this obvious evidence of his sincerity and determination to live the best he could, even when it required this kind of significant sacrifice. It is no small thing to skip lunch and then load three more tons of rocks in the hot sun.
This experience made a deep impression on my mind. I can only wonder and admire when I remember this life story. I drew upon it for strength just a few weeks ago and decided then that I must record this story so that others can also draw upon it. I had just been called to the High Council of the Taylorsville North Central Stake and was having a terrible time adjusting to their schedule of meetings. It was simple enough - second and fourth Sunday mornings at 7:00 AM. In spite of that I forgot about 3 out of 4 meetings those first 2 months and about 7:10 my telephone rang and I was asked if I intended to attend that morning. I always said "Yes" and hurried as fast as I could to the meeting. Finally, the Sunday morning after the time change I was called again. I had forgotten to change our clocks and the meeting. When I arrived at the meeting, the clock said there was only 15 minutes left of a normal 2-hour meeting. It was an hour wrong but I didn't realize that yet. I was incredibly embarrassed as this was at least the third time I would be walking in well after the meeting started and sitting not nearly far enough from the Stake Presidency. I was sorely tempted to just go back home, but my father's resolute determination came to mind, and I decided that no matter how painful the next few minutes would be, I would subject myself to it in the hope that it would help me to never again forget to be where I had covenanted to be. That memory gave me the strength to do what I had to do that morning. Apparently it was effective, as I have not forgotten a single meeting since that day.
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Last update: Sunday, 27-May-2018 01:30:21 EDT