Lewis Walter Bailey

My Dad passed away when I was 14 years old, and he was ill for about 18 months prior to this with cancer. The oldest son of Walter and Wilma Bailey, he and his three brothers were raised in my grandparents home at 4131 South Main Street, Murray, Utah 84107. Dad didn't move that far from his parents home, to our home at 3990 South Main Street, whereas his ancestors traveled many, many miles from their homelands in ships, wagons, and handcarts to Utah to practice their religion.

My Dad was amazing, and he could fix and build anything. He built our house and the house directly north of our house with the help of his Dad and his brother Jerry. We had a beautiful yard, which was my Dad's pride and joy. Our yard was a 4th of an acre and it was in three sections - the front yard which had a hedge along the front, flower gardens running along most of the length of the driveway, with lovely trees and bushes including a honeysuckle plant and a rose bush at the corner of the house and lawn. The back yard had a garage and two patios - one off the back of the house, and one connected to the garage along with fruit trees, a well, more lawn, gardens with all kinds of bushes, plants, statuary, bamboo, pine trees, and a clematis vine. In the very back was Dad's shed (man cave) which he built a water wheel on it's eastside. This part of the yard also had a vegetable garden, at one time chicken coops, a swing set, dog house, tether pole, Dad's scrap lumber pile, and a compost pile. Dad loved to garden and he had wanted to work at a garden center when he retired from Kennecott Copper. I remember in the summertime Dad asking me "do you want some candy"...and he would have some baby carrots that he had dug up from out vegetable garden...and he would rinse them off in the well water and give them to me....they were so yummy! Dad was always working on something and building something either in his shed or out in the yard or going to Anderson Lumber to get more wood. I watched him build our garage and the wood fence on the north side of our yard. He taught me how to use basic tools, and I will always associate the smell of sawdust with my Dad. He could also fix cars...and pretty much anything mechanical.

My Dad didn't talk a lot about his childhood, although I remember when a large old tree was removed that was at Mrs. Suttons home, which was kitty corner to his parents home to the north-west, that he was sad - he said that he had climbed that tree many times as a child. I know that my Dad collected stamps, butterflies, Coke-A-Cola cards; loved to read-Dostoyevsky, Whitman, Jess Stern - among others; and was in the Audubon Society at one time. I think my Dad had a childhood that was pretty typical of his era (the 1920's) and for the Murray area of the Salt Lake Valley, which was rural at that time. Dad went to Granite High School, and he also worked there as a janitor to help his family when he was in his late teens. I remember that Dad saying that he bought his first car for $100. Dad also loved mathematics, science, fishing, and he had wanted to be a pharmacist. He also loved art, drawing, and oil painting - some of my fondest memories are looking at pictures of paintings in the Encyclopedia with him, especially when he was explaining how Seurat painted La Grande Jatte...this painting will always be special to me.

Dad was a pretty serious guy - stoic, hard working, responsible, and time conscious, Dad always carried a pocket watch because it was too dangerous to wear a wrist watch while working at Kennecott. He served in the US Army, in the 399th Infantry Regiment as a Private in World War II, mostly in Germany, and he received an Honorable Discharge. The only time I heard my Dad cuss was when he talked about General Patton, and I know that Dad helped liberate the people who were in the Dachau concentration camp, that he helped several of his fellow soldiers learn to read, and that he got to shake General Dwight D. Eisenhower's hand while he was in the service. Like other men of this era, Dad didn't talk about the war except for talking about the countries he went to. He talked about he and his buddies exploring the castles in Spain, how beautiful Austria was and that he wanted to go back to Europe with my Mom after he retired...they had wanted to get a van and travel all over Europe.

Shortly after Dad came home from the service he met my Mom...her best friend Joyce (Kropf) Bailey was dating his brother Jerry. My parents were married October 26, 1947, and they lived in a little apartment (Bergen's Apartments) on State Street and about 47th South until our house, or the beginnings of it, was built. I think the house was added on to twice, including the upstairs. My Dad worked at the Murray Smelter and then he worked at Kennecott Copper for 25 years. As much and as hared as he worked "shift-work" and around our house and yard he was an incredibly engaged and involved parent and he encouraged all of his children to do well. He was at every school program - he was the dad taking pictures with his camera with the giant flash....even when he was in a wheelchair and in an incredible amount of pain he attended my eighth grade Girls Chorus concerts.

We would go for walks in the big field behind our house, and to the store just up the street. Dad played outside with us; took us to Lagoon, the library, and parks; I think he thought or dog Sam was his son; he was interested in the paranormal, and he played board, card, and Victorian parlor games with us that were similar to giant Tarot cards. When Mom was out to dinner with "The Club" Dad would sometimes make us his "special hamburgers"... I'm not sure what he put in them but they were yummy! He also liked to make cole slaw...he would chop up this hung mound of cabbage... Dad also knew the name of every bird, plant, rock, and animal, and we stopped and read every roadside historical marker in Utah when we went for drives. Dad usually wore "Old Spice" or "Aqua Velva", and he was a pretty conservative dresser, but once in a while he would wear his red stripe polyester shirt with his black and white hound-tooth polyester pants...the memory of this hideous outfit is branded into my memory...but Dad thought it was a great combination... he said he "didn't want to dress like a Service Station Attendant"....my Mom wanted to bury him in these clothes so she wouldn't have to look at them anymore....the Mortician would not let her....so he was buried in a suit.

I have a lot of fond memories of Dad taking us to the canyons, Oregon, Moab, Yellowstone, the Little Sahara Sand Dunes, to deserted mining towns, and to Bear Lake. When we drove to Bear Lake the Wyoming way he would say 'the first one to say that they see the lake gets an ice cream' and I always think of my Dad when I eat a orange cream cycle. We went for a lot of rides and I'm mot sure if we were lost or not but we ended up on a lot of back roads in Utah....and I have know clue how we got there or how we got home.... in one or the other of our station wagons.... Ford of course...my Dad was a Ford man. I think he knew a little about his Family History but he didn't talk about it a lot... but we would wander around the Bingham Cemetery, looking for his Grandfather's grave. When we drove through Nephi he would say 'there is Great Grandpa's mill,' and when he say pictures of the Transcontinental Railroad event he would say 'there is Great, Great Grandpa's train....and he would say that 'we were Druids' or 'we are Gypsies'......anyway, Dad would also say stuff like "a sharp girl always has a sharp pencil," and "first the worst, second the same, last the best of all the game;" and when we would go put to dinner he would always put his parsley on one of out plates...so now I put parsley on his grave on Memorial Day!

My Dad loved Classical Music...Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Strauss, Enrico Caruso...and Dad also liked "Laura's Theme" from the movie Dr. Zhivago, and the theme from The Godfather. Dad used to listen to his Classical Music on the radio while he worked on projects in his tool shed in our back yard...my Mom said that one time he was playing his music so loudly that the neighbors called the police on him! My brother Donald (1947-2001), and my sister Carolyne liked Classic and 1960's Rock and Roll...which he hated...my sister Debra (1956)...well her taste in music is pretty tame, so when my sister Lori (1962) and I came along and became 'music crazy' he was pretty tolerant or worn down...I'll never know for sure, but we got listen to our radio station in the car...Dad took us to the airport to greet our favorite Scottish boy-band when they came to Salt Lake City in 1977...he even paid the postage to Scotland when I mailed the drummer a fan letter...was it because they were Scottish??? I can only speculate ... I hope that my Dad surrounded with peace, love , and light, and I hope his parents, and grandparents are proud of him....and If anyone wants to share there memories of my Dad please feel free to contact me.