Memories: Beverly Clement Behling

CONTRIBUTED BY DAUGHTER BEVERLY CLEMENT BEHLING

MEMORIES OF MY FATHER RAPHAEL CLEMENT

First, I want to say that I came to love and respect my father, Raphael Clement, as an honorable person, one who loved the Lord and served him well.

I will be eternally grateful for my angel mother, Pearl Iretta Olsen, who stood by Dad through every phase of their life together, but especially when Dad died of cancer. It was an excruciating time for all.

I can only imagine what a heavy responsibility it must have been for Dad to care for such a large family, just for our need to survive because of the great depression from 1929 to the late 1930's. It was extremely long hours of back-breaking labor for him from dawn to dusk on cold winter days or under hot sun from earliest spring to late fall, to provide enough food to last us all through the cold Utah winters.

My father took great pride in his work. Long hours in his romance with the soil to make it yield, and he had a depth and sensitivity perhaps overlooked because of his "authoritarian manner." To me he was always at a great distance, someone unattainable but to be held in respect.

Usually I have great recall for my early years except experiences with my father and yet there was evidence of him every place I looked - the stubble of wheat stalks in the fields and great mounds of hay and straw, the earth turned in long even rows, dams to hold the water back for the cattle and sheep, a granary full of wheat, and garden produce and fresh meat to meet the needs of the ever growing family.

No one could ever fault him for not working hard and long hours, hot summer or cold winter. It was his livelihood and his recreation, and he could see no reason why everyone else didn't see it the same way as he did. 

He was tall and lean and had clear blue eyes and very large, strong hands to plow, build barns and fences, milk, dig and haul coal from the mine, plant and harvest each year. And then begin again year after year to make his nine thousand dollar, eighty acre farm in north Fairview produce.

The grain would be hauled to the flour mill and the surplus milk to the creamery to trade for cheese. And if we found a nest of eggs in a haystack, they became the grand treat of candy at the old Red and White Store. 

He did not believe in formal higher education. He told me to marry someone with hands rough from toil. I learned to work hard from his and mother's example, but I married a man with a higher education.

These things will serve as a contrast to the great change that came about in his life when he left the farm behind and became active in the Lord's work as a missionary, a teacher, a Stake Patriarch and a kind man.

I believe Dad was very pleased when four sons were born, and he could then envision eight more helping hands. Believe me when I say that their childhood was relatively short through the discipline of farming and hard work. They learned quickly how to work like men and take responsibility in helping Dad with the stock, the eighty two acres of land, plus the coal mine.

I deem it a special blessing to have had Dad's father, Darius Albert living with us, and I'm sure he helped Mother keep her sanity. He was one of the kindest men to walk the earth and was a great help to mother.

I don't want to leave the impression that it was all hard work and no play. I especially loved the "haying time." That was the time when Dad would let me drive the horse, pulling the "slip" to the field where chains were laid across the slip and then the dried hay was forked onto them and tied down. Back to the barn we would race - passing the other slip on their way back to the field - where the hay was pulled up into the barn and tripped. The chains were then lowered to the slip and off we would race to the field again. Now, if we were real fast we could jump into the nearby swimming pond, clothes and all, to cool down before taking the reins again. 

Another chore I enjoyed was herding the cows in the upper field. To pass the time I would braid endless chains of dandelions to use as necklaces for the cows or just lay on my back and watch the clouds form pictures for my imagination.

One of the hardest chores was to bring up a supply of water from the spring, especially on wash day. Even if it was 103 degrees, a fire was lit to heat the water. The coal having been mined by Dad and others, was hauled to the farm by wagon approximately 16 miles. Our big black coal-eating stove was the family's comfort zone. 

The hot water was dipped from the boiler into the hand-churned washer and the home-made slivered soap was added. Back and forth went my arm until I believed it would drop off. The clothes were then rinsed in water and hung with clothespins on the line to dry. WASH DAY was ALL DAY! And nothing was wasted, the oven heat baked the evening meal and heated water for "tin-tub baths."

Then one day Dad surprised us when he drove home in a CAR - something mechanized! The next wash day, he took one of the back tires off the car and rigged a drive-belt to the rim and then to the washer. When he started the motor, that churn-stick fairly flew back and forth turning the agitator. We whooped and hollered and laughed and danced. It was our miracle...our time saver and our liberation from wash day drudgery.

Life was not the same for some time on the farm after the accident which set Mother on fire in January of 1937. She was trying to light the new-fangled gas lamp. Her face and arms were badly burned. It is truly a miracle that she lived. 

As far back as I can remember, Dad, Mother, Grandpa and all the children gathered morning and evening around the kitchen table and knelt in prayer. In most cases, it seemed to me, we had a direct line to Heavenly Father.

For nearly a year she was in hospitals or with her sisters in Salt Lake City, Utah and we continued to pray for her recovery. We are all grateful, to this day, for her complete and miraculous recovery with no scarring on her beautiful face.

    The two small girls were sent to mother's sister Erma in Salt Lake City, and I was sent to aunt Fawn's home in Salt Lake for awhile. I could not function without my mother. I returned home to Fairview. Now, I being the oldest daughter, nine to ten years of age, I was given increased responsibility. If it hadn't been for my grandfather, I think I would have perished.

Our family moved two times over the next few years. First to Taylorsville, back to Fairview, then to Taylorsville again (two different houses). Then in 1944 we moved to Richland, Washington, where Dad worked in Power at the start-up of the Hanford Engineering Works. Here, life took a total about face. I believe I was sixteen at that time.

One of mom and dad's biggest trials came when they had two of their sons in active duty in WW II, at the same time. Many times I witnessed mom and dad, as they knelt in prayer for their sons' safety. They did not just pray, but they pleaded with the Lord for their safe return. Their prayers were fully granted, for they both returned safe and very sound.

There were few Latter-day Saints that came to Richland in the fall of 1943, when Dad came. It was a great desert. One elementary school, called "Lewis and Clark", and a small high school, one grocery store, no churches, but there was an over abundance of sandstorms. 

Builders soon arrived - thousands of them - and by March 1944, when the rest of the family arrived, the miracle city had materialized. Soon hundreds of families occupied the houses as soon as they were finished. Churches of every denomination, schools, theater, a C.C. Anderson Department store, service stations, a hospital, grocery stores and a city park right along the mighty Columbia River, were built.

A Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints was soon organized and it flourished and soon became big enough to become a Ward. At first, there was not a large enough place to meet, and then we began meeting in school buildings. We began fund-raisers so we could have our own beautiful chapel. We all worked together and stuck together and finished our chapel.

Missionaries were then called. Dad was called to be the Yakima District Mission President, and it was then that he met his stride. He loved missionary work and he gentled into it with much success. He especially enjoyed working with the Indians on the White Swan Reservation near Toppenish, WA. One good friend was Chief Jobe Charlie.

The next big change in our father came when he was called of the Lord to the office of Stake Patriarch, in the newly formed Richland Stake. He did not know of the calling beforehand. When it was announced from the pulpit in the second session of Conference, June 1950, I was sitting across from him, both of us being on an aisle seat. I put out my arm as if to catch him. I thought he would literally fall from his seat. He had truly made a 180 degree turn in his life.

Raphael, my father, went on to become one of the great servants of our Heavenly Father.

As I have matured and have experienced the blessings of my Heavenly Father, I can now appreciate fully the blessings that have come into my own life because of the life-long sacrifices of my own father. I have come to know  - "not to judge another, that we be not judged." We cannot judge another because we have not walked in their place.

Through my life's journey, I have met many crossroads and have sometimes taken the lower road. But, thanks to my father, Raphael Clement, and his good example of ENDURING well to the end, he has given me the courage and the hope and faith to finish my tasks in my sojourn on earth. I love my earthly father.