Harris, Carole Benon (Nov 5, 1925 – May 8, 2000) Eulogy by Kim Wheatley

Carole Benon Harris Wheatley by Kim Wheatley

A short history of her life

Kimbal L. Wheatley, eldest son

May 11, 2000

Tremonton, Utah

I was born in the winter of
�49 to the 24 year old women you all call Benon, or Grandma, but who my
brothers and I will always know as Mom. And who our dad liked to call Topsy.
But her story doesn't start with me, nor will it end today. Our mother,
grandmother, wife and friend leaves a legacy in all of us who ever spent any
time with her.

My mother's humble
beginnings may surprise many of you; she wasn't one to talk much of the past.
As everyone here today knows, my mother directed all of her energy and
spirit to first making good things happen, then to enjoy them as they did
happen. It didn't matter if it was a party with friends and neighbors, a
golf-playing trip to California, an adventure
to Mexico or Alaska, a nursing home
field trip to the bird refuge, a church or civic organization, or just
something good to eat. My mother was happy…, and she lived life to its fullest.
But perhaps it will help to appreciate my mother even more by understanding a
bit of her story.

In 1925 my mother was born
in Grace Idaho to the hard-working, blue-collar couple Leland and Iris Harris.
Two sisters, LaDean and Wanda, were there to greet her arrival. Her father Lee
worked for the telephone company stringing telephone wire throughout southern Idaho in the early part
of the century. When the kids were young, the whole family moved to follow the
ever-expanding telephone system as it reached more remote areas. Mom was about
six when the great depression began, but the family had work if they kept
moving.

My grandmother made ends
meet by playing piano in the silent movie theaters in the towns they moved in
and out of. In fact, I'm sure that grandma Iris' musical talents found their
way into my mother, and they live on today in many of her children and
grandchildren.

As the depression drug on
and LaDean and Wanda got older, her sisters stayed put with friends or
relatives to have a chance at a normal education, while my mother, who was
younger, continued to move with her mom and dad. She went to over ten schools
as she was growing up, some for only for a few months. They lived in temporary
camps, often in tents, in and around the small towns until the family was finally
able to settle down in Pocatello,
where she went to high school.

No doubt, the ease with
which Mom made friends, and her philosophies about people, comes from her
experience as being the new kid on the block time and time again. She accepts
all of us for who we are. She is never judgmental, always leading by example,
never by force. And for Benon, bygones are always just bygones. But she
inspires us to do better, to be better. And she always challenges us to have
fun and enjoy life.

World War II broke out when
Mom was a teenager, and she joined the work force along with many other women
soon after she graduated from high school.

She had attended Idaho
State College for a year, then LDS business school in Salt Lake
for special training on "comptometers", a predecessor to the early computers.

She was about twenty when
she returned to Pocatello
and leveraged her education into a good paying job at the railroad just as the
war ended. But she worked just long enough to have the money to take off for
the University of
Southern California with
her friend Katie. These were heady times. The war was over, the dance bands
were swinging and young women like my mother had the world by the tail. Mom had
fabulous clothes (now including nylons), good looks, money in the bank, and men
coming home from the war. She spent an adventurous year in Los
Angeles and she admits that she had more fun than she got formal
education, though post-war Los Angeles must have
been quite an experience for a girl who grew up around the small towns of Idaho.

Benon's politics were
complex. Her dad was a lifelong union activist and leader in the union-hostile
environment of the west and her mom worked for women's rights. Mom pursued an
education and she joined the workforce young.

She believes that only
education can create personal freedom along with personal responsibility. And
she believes that every person, all the time, can make the world
a little better for themselves and for others with just knowledge, dedication,
their wits, and good old hard work.

But mom always maintained a
Will Rogers view of politicians and government: 
they may do some good once in a while…maybe, but don't
ever mistake government programs or the shenanigans of politicians for what you
should do yourself.

Anyway, when her money ran
out in Los Angeles, Mom headed back to Pocatello and got her job back at the
railroad. She was a worldly 21 and had her own money when her adventurer buddy
Katie introduced her to Lester, a farm boy she had dated before the war. As fate
would have it, Lester coincidentally ended up working downstairs in the same
building where mom worked…and one thing led to another. Dad would wait until
mom got off work at midnight, just to be able to escort her home. Then they
started doing things like taking off for Saltair (from Pocatello) to go
dancing, only to nurse those forties-vintage cars home over Malad pass in the
wee hours.

Dad's lifelong friend Glen
Crump, who was on many of these escapades, claims he dated mom first, but
that's probably another story.

I suspect Mom had a big
impact on Dad…at least as far as a life of pursing fun and joy goes.

Tuesday, Glen and Jean were
telling us about a young Benon, the Halloween prankster, the energetic party
and trip organizer, and the always positive person. In the end, Dad pursued Mom
pretty hard (or so she told it) and they fell into a love that endures. They
were married in 1947 and moved to Provo for dad to finish college…I was born to
some college kids who moved back to Pocatello as soon as Dad graduated that
spring.

The
next ten years were the Ozzie and Harriet days of the 50's. Mom's sisters
LaDean and Wanda had babies too, just my age, and we all lived within a few
blocks of each other. Dad had gone into business with Lionel (Wanda's husband),
and Mom, LaDean and Wanda stayed close. So Bill, Brad, Carole and I, and a few
years later Scott and Alan and Con, grew up in an extended family that was very
close, and rare by today's standards. We all sort of had three moms and I'm
sure that they are remembering and mourning my mother as I did when their
mothers died.

Mom was offered her job
back at the railroad when we were young and she chose to return to work. We
boys spent a lot of time with aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins. But, as
you can imagine Mom had it all worked out. She was able to balance
family and work, and in her mind she was securing our future.

One of my earliest
memories… is of my mother's answer to my question about why she worked,
when few other mothers did at the time. She sat down with me with paper and
pencil and taught me the family finances. House payment, food, electricity
& heat, tithing, and investment in the future for her family. Then she
showed me the income from Dad's service station business…it was good, sometimes,
but it wasn't always predictable. And when sales were low, we ate into our
savings for our future…a definite no-no in her eyes.

Much later I realized that
the future, for Benon as it was for her sisters, was never to be left to
chance… you either created the future you wanted to have, or you just let it
happen to you…and why in the world would you do that?

In 1960 Mom and Dad and
Glenn and Jean decided to throw in together and buy a car dealership in
Tremonton. Then, at age 36, in the middle of moving four kids and leaving
friends and family in Pocatello, Mom was dealt a terrible blow when she was
severely injured in a car accident that also killed her mother. Mom was in a
hospital in Twin Falls, Dad was living with Glen in Wayne Sandall's basement in
Tremonton where they were trying to get a new business off the ground, and her
four boys were strung out among relatives.

Her mother had just been
killed and her doctors were telling her that she would not be able to walk
again…and she was pregnant with Mark.

She arrived in Tremonton in
1961, in a wheel chair, without a house, pregnant, uprooted from family and
friends, and without her children.

But she proved the doctors
wrong, she gathered her boys together to create a new life in Tremonton, she
had her new baby Mark, and she gave it her all. Her days of dancing, skiing,
and hiking were over, but she developed a resiliency that we can only admire.

During the 60's, Mom and
Dad settled into life in Tremonton. Mom as usual, started creating the future
she wanted to have. She jumped into her church and community organizations and anything
that affected her boys…PTA, cub scouts, boy scouts, primary, athletic
associations, fund raisers and the like. When Jeff joined the family, mom had
boys ranging from wild teenagers to a cute little baby. And we all
remember that Mom was always there for us, with unconditional love,
despite whatever trouble and problems we threw at her. And she simply beamed at
our graduations, successes, honors, farewells and homecomings.

Mom was about 50 when Jeff
was starting school and I was graduating from college. She must have been
getting restless because she really cranked things up in her 50's. She took on
leadership positions in every organization she was involved in, MIA, Relief
Society, Civic League, and even golf. 
She peppered Tremonton society with little "ditties" from Benonymous…
poetic expressions of her philosophies. Do any of you remember some of these,
that I found on her computer the other day? It looks like they were from one of
those games she was always making up to try to teach someone, something…

Confucius say: (but of
course it was actually Benonymous):

 "She who stops being better, stops being
good,"

Benonymous say: "Joy is not
in things, it is in us"

Benonymous say: "Let every
man sing his own song in life"

Benonymous
say: "Pray for a good harvest, but keep on plowing"

And when the new Tremonton
hospital was to open, and Carma Bradshaw suggested she apply for the position
of activities coordinator for the nursing home, she went back to work.
And there is a story here that tells a lot about mom.

Turns out the nursing home
didn't have a suitable vehicle for transporting residents to anyplace they could
be active. When told there was no money for transport, the "VAN" project
formed in Mom's head. She proposed to the county that they put up half the
money if she could raise the other half of the price of an 15 passenger van.
She would be the driver. She would chauffer the residents. She painted a rosy
picture of old people actively engaged in outings… and the county took the
bait, probably giving low odds to ever having to come up with their half.

But, if so, they
underestimated Benon. She rallied the community who collected aluminum cans
from the trash bins at the high school and along the roadsides. They put on
bake sales and quilt raffles. And two years later they went back to the county
with their half of the money, and with a van already picked out and on hold. Of
course, the county didn't have their half of the money budgeted, and besides,
you can't just go out and buy a van without going through county purchasing.

Well, to make a long story
short, and to not embarrass any county officials that might be here, mom and
the Bear River Care Center residents enjoyed that van thoroughly…For ten years
they took trips to the bird refuge to marvel at nature, or to see the beauty of
the aspens and maples in Logan Canyon in the fall, or a nostalgic visit to the
railroad museum in Ogden, or to anyplace else Mom could think of within a few
hours drive.

Turns out that treating a
dozen or so elderly folk to a good time was something Mom loved to do, and I
know she made a lot of people happy.

And organizing outings for
her friends and family was merely more of the same. Again, Benon simply made
good things happen, then enjoyed them as they unfolded.

We sons started getting
married when Mom was in her forties, then we started calling her grandma as we
had children…her grandchildren. She was delighted that she was finally getting
some girls into the family…to offset her life among men and boys laundry I
suppose. In fact, about the closest thing to a complaint I ever heard from my
mother is expressed in a verse she penned sometime in her forties. This poem,
which is on the back of the program, gives us a little insight into one of the
futures she patiently waited for…knowing that one day her boys would bring some
girls into the family.

I found this verse from the
text of a tribute given when she was named Mother of the Year by the Civic
League a few years back. She had selected it herself, from among countless
poems, as a sample of her poetry. Yesterday, Scott found the original, where
the five was scratched out and replaced with six. I hope I can do it justice:

Little girl dresses, row after row,

Here's a black and white check, with a red velvet bow,

Or this with white ribbons on blue dotted swiss,

Or this trimmed with lace for the delicate miss,

Oh, Here comes a clerk, "May I help you, please?"

"Yes, I want six pairs of boys jeans with reinforced knees."

Mom and Dad enjoyed life to
the fullest for several decades, including their mission to Georgia. Then, when
Mom was about 67, her health began to fail, and she knew she had bad odds.
LaDean, her oldest sister had died young and Wanda was terribly ill. Mom had a
stroke while golfing about seven years ago, but she battled back to health.
Then her heart needed an overhaul five years ago and all the wonders of modern
medicine couldn't restore her health to good-as-new.

Arthritis, a broken hip and
diabetes was to follow, knocking her back for weeks and months at a time. But
during all of this, she continued planning trips, parties and activities and
joining in them. Our dad had a tough time of it…helping and caring for a women
that simply would not stop, not that he would have it any other way.

They were a team, Lester
& Benon, and a little adversity was to be expected. No complaining from
this team.

Her golf proved to be an
accurate barometer of her health; one day she quit driving, content to use dad's
drives as she became an expert at chipping. Then, when she couldn't chip
anymore, she focused on putting. Finally this last year, she simply rode around
with Dad in the cart.

Lester, you are a role
model for us all…and we thank you for helping Benon to keep on going for it as
long as she could.

Branson last November must
have been tough, but Virginia in February even tougher. In March, mom told me
that she had planned her last trip…that there wouldn't be any more trips, maybe
not even more parties, and we all knew she was dying. But now we didn't
want her to give up. It couldn't be! Fight mom, fight!

Two weeks ago, she decided
to die and to let her spirit go on. As usual, she chose to create her future,
then to experience it. She examined her spirit and said "I'm ready." Then she
looked the death of her worn-out body right in the eye and said "now's the
time." By the time I got there, mom and dad, with the help of especially Carma
and also the rest of their friends, had chosen a natural death and had arranged
for admission to the nursing home where she had worked for 13 years….no more
ICU's or machines for Benon, not this time. She chose to enter the nursing home
to give dad a break from his devoted care taking.

That day she asked me "How
long does it take to die?" I said, "Gosh mom, that's a tough question…I don't
know…", but in the back of my mind I was thinking "knowing you, probably about
as long as you want it to." Well, she never made it to the nursing home. The
great staff of the hospital helped dad care for her for ten days as she said
her goodbyes. Then she died, peaceably with dad holding her hand.

So today we bury the body a
great person. To know her is to love her. She makes all of our lives better,
some just a little, and some of us a lot. And that makes her happy.

Lester and Benon, Mom and
Dad, Grandma and Grandpa…you have truly shown us a way, and you have nudged the
future in a direction that will surely please you as it unfolds.

This
story was about the mortal life of Carole Benon Harris Wheatley, 1925-2000.

Her legacy and immortal
life continues on.