Handing Down a Legacy

"Let Adversity Make You A Better Person"

I was given an “assignment” by my older, much prettier sister, who keeps “prodding” me and all the rest of the family to get this “assignment” done.  It is a good cause, and last night as I lay awake at 2 in the morning, my nightly ritual, my mind started forming the thoughts that I might be able to somehow put together what would accomplish the assignment that I was given. 

I decided that putting it on my web-page might be a good thing, then I would be able to refer to it later and maybe others could share in the thoughts that I had.  But as I started "my assignment" I decided I wanted to expand it a little more here on my web-page.  So, I've added a few more stories and a few more pictures and then I'll condense it down to what Jenny needs.

Ya see my Papa will be 80 years old on May 3^rd this year.  This is something I can hardly get my mind around, since it seems like to me he has always been just the same age that he is right now.  I don’t know that he has ever changed and even though I have grown older I really never noticed that my Dad did.

This is what my Dad has just always looked like to me.  

Notice the work hat with the sweat around the band area.  

This is just 'My Dad!"

 This is Dad and Mom with little Jenny in 1955

I love this picture!  It's my favorite.  

From left to right:

Randall William, Dorlene Burgener Beard, Becky Rae(that's me), 

Jenny Lee, William Virgil Beard, and Kenneth Virgil

I have pictures of Tom when he is about my age there(about 3) that look just like me.  Heh!

My Dad has defied the tests of time.  He has always been active, building a cattle ranch and farm as soon as him and Mom were able to obtain one and making a living out of it all these years.  He has worked hard to support a family when times were tough.  Of course you couldn’t pay tribute to the success of the ranch and the raising of our family without including Mom too.  Each had their own responsibilities and worked hard at whatever needed to be done.

 This is Mom and Dad a FEW years back.  I think it was taken in 1986.

This is "the fam" about that same year:
We don't look much different than we did in the other picture huh!

Front:  Mom (Dorlene Burgener Beard) and Dad (William Virgil Beard)

Back:  Becky Rae Beard Muench, Kenneth Virgil Beard,
Randall William Beard, Jenny Lee Beard Smith

When Dad was about 50 years old they found that he had colon cancer.  When they went in to remove it they found the cancer in his liver and his lymph glands.  He bore the trials and sickness of chemotherapy (they’ve come a long ways in 30 years) for the next six months and then he was told to get his affairs in order, he would be going in for surgery to remove a third of his liver and several lymph glands, but he wasn’t expected to live through the surgery. 

Today, 30 years later, he wraps up every morning in the dead of winter, sometimes when it’s 20 below zero, goes out and hooks up the team of horses and feeds his 60 or so head of cattle.  He’s as strong as ever throwing the hay bales around, shoveling snow, and just doing “whatever has to be done”.   Sometimes I sit and look at him and just know that it’s that lifestyle that has kept him alive all these years.  If he would have given up, crawled into his easy chair and just watched tv every day, he probably wouldn’t be with us still today.  

 In the winter time the hay has to be loaded from the stack on to the sleigh,
then they pull the sleigh with the team of horses out to the herd of cattle
to feed them.  This has to be done whether it is 50 degrees or
30 below, storming or sunshine, 

calm or blowing 50 miles an hour.
He still does it today.

This one they are using a sleigh pulled with one horse.  It looks like possibly it is a "warmer" day because the snow has melted into a river of mud and manure!  That was always so much fun!  NOT!
Just wait till you slipped and fell in a puddle of that.
And...don't even talk about what you tracked in to the house.
Mom's trials were many, trying to keep up with cleaning up after all of the mess.

In the spring is "calving time".  Dad still gets up several times a night and goes out to check on the cows that are ready to have their calves to try and make sure that he doesn't lose any of them in the bitter cold and snow.  These look like some pretty healthy calves here.

Once all the cows have their calves and the branding is done the herd is
moved to different pastures where the feed is the best.  I always enjoyed the "cowboyin'"!

The work is never done though on the ranch.  There is always a corral or shed to clean out.....

Or another fence or shed to fix.....

I’m grateful for his strength in persevering, because each of my boys were able to come work on the ranch “for Grandpa” for at least one summer.  They each learned lessons that they still talk about today.  Lessons of hard work; the same lessons I learned when I was a kid.  The things that made me what I am today.  I was taught to do a job well and when the work was done for the day, it was then that you could go play.  I’m sure that he learned these lessons from his folks as well.  I look at many of the things he has done in his life and they reflect his parents and grandparents.  Hard workers, everyone of them.  When the chores were done, many a trail ride was taken as families, many picnics, and wonderful family dinners.  Things that I think have been lost by so many in today's world full of tv’s and video games.

Something that Dad learned to do from his Grandpa Beard was how to train Oxen.  Here are two calves that he started with.  He made his own yolk and trained them to voice command.  They would pull the sleigh to feed the cows in the winter.  He also had them in several parades.

Here they are at about full grown.  Dad was able to go to Nauvoo, Illinois 

and be in the movie "Legacy" with this set of oxen.  There is a picture from the film of Winter Quarters

that is in several magazines and in buildings with Dad and this set of oxen.

 Legacy Movie on the Internet

Here is another set of oxen that Dad trained.  They were even bigger than the others.

They were in several parades.

 Dad was taught to hunt by his ancestors and he handed that down to his kids and grandkids.

We grew up on deer and elk meat.  There was always food on the table.

Trail rides were always enjoyable--this one was up to Hurricane Pass
Dad, Kenneth and his wife Sonia, and my Jeff

Same Hurricane Pass trail ride--
Kenneth, laying down, Mom, Sonia, Dad and Jeff

Same Hurricane Pass trailride--
Jeff, Kenneth(are you tired?), Dad, and Sonia

Another trailride--
Randy, Kenneth, and Dad

Same trailride---Dad

Dad enjoyed his family and he encouraged all of us to be musical.  Jenny and Kenneth took guitar lessons when they were pretty young and then they taught me and Randy how to play the guitar.  There was always music in the house.  Dad has a little accordion that he knows how to play and he knows how to play the harmonica too.

A rare occasion when I caught Dad playing his harmonica

So, this is what brings me to the topic of my “assignment” from my sister.  She ask that each of us in the family write a page, with pictures if possible of a memory that we had of Dad/Grandpa that she will compile in to a book for him for his birthday……and whenever my mind heads in that direction it always goes to this:

Dad taught us all how to ride horses when we were young.  Riding horses, having horses to use to pull wagons and sleighs for work, was just part of our life.  We always had at least one horse saddled and tied up out by the grainery, ready to ride.

 Dad

Every day there was a lot of work to do, especially in the summers with watering the crops, rocks to pick, fences to fix, and then haying time would come along.  The days were long and hot in the summer.  We all had chores and we all worked hard.  But we all knew that at the end of the day, when the chores were through, we could rest….and we could play.  

Many of those evenings, after supper was finished I remember Dad and me saddling up a couple of horses.  I was probably not even big enough for my feet to reach the stirrups, but we would head down the road, side by side and over to Darby Creek and then down through the brush of the creek(pronounced "crick") bottom.  All the time we would visit.  Ya know, I don’t remember at all what we talked about.  I have no idea.  But I can picture us there on the horses as the sun was going down and the air was cooling off and it was a peaceful feeling.

Every time I hear the song that the Sons of the Pioneers sang “Ridin down the canyon to watch the sun go down, a picture that no artist ere' could paint....”, this same picture comes into my mind.  It’s a peaceful feeling, one I know that I will never forget.

Thank you My Papa for taking time for me and giving me memories that will always be etched in the screen of my mind and corners of my heart.

 No matter what was going on, I usually had a horse close by.

 This is me riding down the snow covered road.  Brrrrr......

 When I was about 8 years old, Dad bought this Buckskin horse for me.  I named him Buck. I spent all my time on him.  As you can see my feet don't even touch the stirrups. I would have to get him over real close to the fence or the pickup so that I could climb up on them first in order to get on to him.  He was awesome. We were best buds.  Many, many memories!!!

 This is a picture of my Papa taken a couple of years ago. 

I don't think he's changed a bit!

I love you and Happy 80^th Birthday!