On October 18, 2019 several of us met in an American Fork chapel to visit with Byron (and Dan's family) while he was in town for a BYU football game .
(Unfortunately we sent out the wrong address and at least three other groups tried to find us but were unable to. My sincerest, deepest regrets.)
As we visited, each family shared a story or two, and Byron paid a lovely tribute to his father. It was a good reminder of what Grandpa Todd's life was like as a child. In some ways Grandpa was absolutely amazing, but he was not perfect. My husband, Rick, likes to say, "we are all damaged goods doing the best we can."
Here is Byron's tribute, in his own words:
I wanted to share something, to pay tribute to the patriarch of our family, my father.
(Unfortunately we sent out the wrong address and at least three other groups tried to find us but were unable to. My sincerest, deepest regrets.)
As we visited, each family shared a story or two, and Byron paid a lovely tribute to his father. It was a good reminder of what Grandpa Todd's life was like as a child. In some ways Grandpa was absolutely amazing, but he was not perfect. My husband, Rick, likes to say, "we are all damaged goods doing the best we can."
Here is Byron's tribute, in his own words:
I wanted to share something, to pay tribute to the patriarch of our family, my father.
Most of you know his mother died giving birth of Childbed Fever. Thanks to Margaret . . . she did some research for the book on D M Sr., it turns out the same midwife who attended Florence Driggs Todd, my grandmother, attended several other women giving birth at the same time, and all died from Childbed Fever. She died about two months after my Dad’s birth. So, he lost his mother.
My Grandfather Todd was born before the civil war. . . . in 1860. He kind of resented my father. He was totally infatuated with his wife and blamed my Dad, to some extent, for her death.
While my Father had a dad, (he was emotionally unavailable.) He quickly married this woman who was was a school teacher. She really resented my Father’s older sister Florence. The two of them really suffered at the hands of this woman.
At about a year or two he had wet himself, he wasn’t being cared for, and rather then clean him she wrapped him up tight and put him close to the fire, burning his legs, which stuck together. You could see the scars on his legs.
He told this story to me once and the way he told it really tugged at me: His Dad had come home, he didn’t really have an association with him, and he asked, “Dad can we run and see how far each of us can jump?” His Father wouldn’t do it. He just turned away. That was my Father’s legacy. He never graduated from High School . . . . Yet his Dad was an educator and fairly well renowned. . . . If that isn’t a disconnect with his own son that he didn’t see to it that he even got a high school education. . .
He went through all of that abuse and yet he was this great father and this great grandfather. He loved his kids and loved his grandkids.
