Losing Lee was a great loss to our family. He was the best of grandpas.

Lee was born into tough times in northeastern Wyoming. His family pictures show a couple of tough looking little kids in a grubby clapboard house surrounded by barren prairie. His dad worked horses and livestock and he had one little brother who was killed in a car-train accident when he was 12 years old. Lee would have been killed too, but he got out of the car to open the crossing gate for his mother. When the train hit the car it killed his little brother, Lester, in the back seat. His mother survived the accident.

Lee worked hard through school and wanted to be a railroad man. He was disqualified because of color blindness. He married Carol's mom, Millie, in the middle of the war years and left for Europe as a reinforcement for those seige of Bastogne. Arriving in France, his group motored across France in their M4 Sherman tank. They fought in several engagements and finished the war close to Lindt, Austria.

Lee came home from the war and worked as a mechanic and a lumberjack for several years around St. Maries, Idaho.

When the Columbia Basin Project opened up, he and Millie, loaded the four kids into their Willies car and drove to Othello, Washington to pioneer and homestead a new farm unit.

Things were very primitive when they arrived. There was only an irrigation head ditch and surveying stakes out by their farm unit. They lived in a tiny trailer for a year, while they built a house and put their farm into production. The kids slept in a tent and bathed in an irrigation canal.

Lee worked to supplement the farm. For many years he worked for Orin Fox, Othello's local John Deere Dealer, as a John Deere mechanic. After working for Orin Fox, he worked for Pete Taggares (Taggares Farms). Finally he moved his tools back to his own farm shop where he opened Lee's General Repair. Trucks, tractors, cars, farm machinery, and all types of mechanical things were brought to him to be repaired.

In 1971, after having major back surgery, Lee began reading and studying the Bible and became a serious Christian believer. Finding saving faith in Jesus Christ, the cross became his message and he willingly shared it with anyone who would listen.

I came into the scene in 1973, dating Carol, his youngest daughter.

Carol had become a Christian believer in 1970. Her brother Bill Holmes had preceeded her. Her older sister, Linda Mehrer, had also come to Christ. I accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior in 1971. I showed up one night at the farm house to visit Carol and to be introduced to the family.

My National Guard haircut put me in pretty good graces with Lee, who hadn't really adjusted to the idea of long-haired men. We hit it off pretty well and when he found out I was in an armor unit of M60 tanks, he opened right up and told me all about World War II, Sherman tanks, carrying gasoline everynight, being dirty and cold and miserable.

It was a great evening. Carol cooked me a giant steak and when she took it out of the oven, it slid right off the platter and landed flat on the floor. She looked at me, then picked it up and flopped it on the plate and set it down before me to see what I was going to do. I ate the entire thing.

When you are in love you are invincible. No germs can touch you.

Later that night Carol talked Millie, her mom, who was the family barber, into giving me a better National Guard haircut. Millie was a great hair cutter, but she must have been nervous because she cut the end of my ear with the scissors. Everyone thought it was a great evening. Even my cut ear was happy.

Eventually, Carol and I were married and dinner with Lee and Millie became a common thing. We spent many years doing things with them. They were great people.

But the real thing I wanted to say about Lee was this. He was an honest man. He was man without craft or guile. He did not scheme, he did not try to figure out how to do the other guy. He simply worked very hard and lived his life out grateful that God had saved him.

In the last few months of his life, when he really did suffer terrible pain from the cancer, he did not get angry about it. He just bore it. When he finally reached the end of his treatment and was told there was nothing else which could be done, he accepted dying, with complete faith that he would be with the Lord. He was truly a good example for everyone who knew him.

That is what I wanted everyone to know about him and why I have his picture here. He was a good man for a younger man to know. I owe him a lot.