I never learned a great deal about Willard's past except that he had had to drop out of school when his father died in order to support his family. He put several of his siblings through school, but was unable to return to school himself. Also, I know that he was caregiver for his invalided mother for years and therefore did not marry. When he married my mother, Edna Luverna Stone King, it was his first and his last marriage.

Willard was a Christian man in the way that God intended for His children to live. He was kind, compassionate, and gentle. As for his everyday life, he was a hard working man who earned his living by the sweat of his brow. This was also as God intended. He was a faithful member of the Methodist Church as faithful is rightly defined. He was a member of the Grange, and a upstanding man of his community. Having no children of his own, he treated us as he would if we had been his own flesh and blood. In the years that I was privileged to know him, I never heard him raise his voice or speak harshly or speak in anger.

During their short courtship, Willard and Edna would walk hand in hand as if they were teenagers. During their marriage, they worked together to make a good home and were a more than respected couple of the community. They were both creative and would fashion crafts from various materials with which they would adorn their home, give away, or sometimes sell in Williard's sister's shop. There was seldom much money, but they were never poor. They were both neat as a "pin."

Willard's small farm was also neat, and he worked hard to maintain it. Edna worked beside him. In fact, it was while she was "putting up hay" that she had her first of five heart attacks. Friends, and of course we children, were always welcome. Those days at Mom and Willard's are now a part of our lives as long as we have the capacity to remember. These few words are to insure that we continue to remember, and that our grandchildren will know that Willard "is." Thank you Willard. If the following scripture is for anyone, it is for Willard. Thank you God for your gift:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,

He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths

Of righteousness for his names sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow

Of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;

Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

The preparest a table before me in the

Presence of mine enemies: thou anointest

My head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow

Me all the days of my life: and I will dwell

In the house of the Lord forever.

Psalms 23.