Happy Father's Day - Grandpa

Happy Father's Day - Grandpa

Randy Travis, He walked on water 

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WALTER’S WIT
(By: Walter Duane Eagar-his son)

 Some of his sayings:  “hot today and hot tamale”, “come in if your nose is clean” or “come in and have a clean bite”,(such a joker).  He was a great storyteller and aside from entertaining the scouts with stories of mountain lions or “old big foot” the last Grizzly on Pine Valley Mountain.  He could tell you a funny story or make up a joke on the spot and if he sat down with Uncle Frank, Uncle Thomas and his nephew Junior Eagar it would be like they say, “the first liar never had a chance.”

He always maintained that a man who said he was the boss in his own home would lie about other things.  Just to illustrate some of his sayings about mom he would say: “when I married Jessie I also had to marry her piano”.  More than once I heard this one:  “ The other day I wanted to buy Jessie a new dress so I went into a department store in St. George and told the sales girl to help me pick one out.  When she did so I asked her to give it to my wife when she came in later.  The clerk asked me how she would know who to give it to.  I replied:  Just watch for the most beautiful woman who comes into your store today.  That will be her.” 

 Dad was always the “outdoorsman” and loved to hunt the deer and be up in the hills after them.  He often entertained California hunters who would never miss the thrill of hunting with Walter Eagar.  He had a way of making it so exciting for them.  I remember Jim and Alice Griner also Dean and Dodie. Then there was Hughie Long who got so excited when he saw a buck that he emptied most of his shells on the ground before he found the trigger.   They always brought us oranges and other goodies even a little port wine for Dad (medicinal of course).                                                  

Dad also took them down to Lake Mead to fish.  This was always a great experience for they would go out on the Lake in “Uncle” Nephi Lee’s boat with the big Johnson and Johnson out-board motor.  We first caught minnows in Harrisburg  (Quail Creek before the dam) and bought a pound or two of raw shrimp so we had our bait.   When anyone hooked onto a big one there was plenty of excitement and lots of help with the dip net.

     Another way Dad got out into the hills was to go after loads of Juniper and Pinyon wood both to sell and for our own use.  He enjoyed taking us boys with him and after we piled up a sizable amount of wood on a mesa he would stretch the cable and tying the wood on with baling wire send it flying down where we could load it on the old Chevy pickup truck.   Sometimes he would use dynamite to blast a big stump out of the ground.  When we were ready to head home Dad always managed to have some bottles of Pepsi, Vienna Sausage, and some Danish rolls.  They sure tasted good up there in the mountain air.  One summer dad was sawing up the wood in stove lengths to sell when his hand slipped and he almost cut two of his fingers off.  They healed but not completely and he always said he couldn’t do his fingering on the violin as well as before.

     During these later years Walter served well as Bishop in Leeds. He and Jessie organized an “old timer” dance band to play for the senior citizens in Hurricane.  They played there every week for a good number of years.

Walter was generous to a fault and would never turn away a tramp or a hobo. He was always afraid that “it might be my old dad”.  In Leeds over the years Walter served in many capacities such as bishop, scoutmaster and counselor to four bishops.

Serving as Postmaster he listened to many problems and gave out advice and comfort as only he knew how to give. For many years he was the only barber in town.  He never received much pay for his haircuts nor expected much.  In all of his interaction and service Walter would inject his special wit so that folks would go away in a good humor.                                                                                                       

He was often called upon to help “lay out” the dead and prepare them for burial (before Mortuaries took over).  As you can tell from this account, Walter was a many faceted man with lots of talents and abilities.  He was not a complainer nor was he the bearer of gossip.  He just served unselfishly both for his family and for his community.

Walter lived for his family and died in their embrace on the 23^rd of October 1994.  It is no exaggeration to say that he lives on in memory by the good he did to so many of us and in fact he will continue to live on in his posterity.

Tracing back Walter’s lineage one finds him descending from many of the great and noble men of history: Charlemagne, William, the Conqueror and Alfred, the Great.  He also counts as progenitors some who played prominent parts in American history such as John Alden, Priscilla Mullins and Edward Winslow.  Far from being proud or looking down on anyone Walter loved his fellow man.   He only wanted the best for his family and never passed up a chance to help them whenever he could.  

I hope we may all appreciate the legacy he passed on to us and be faithful in passing “the torch” to the generations that follow. This is expressed in one of Dad’s favorite poems by Longfellow: 

Lives of Great men all remind us,

We can make our lives sublime,

And departing, leave behind us

Footprints in the sands of time

Footprints that perhaps another,

Sailing o’er life’s stormy main,

A forlorn and shipwreck’d brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.

I think we can all “take heart” from Walter’s “footprints” and learn to be positive in loving life and living it to the fullest.  

My remembrances of Walter and Jessie Eagar (Grandpa and Grandma)

By Grant Eagar

I remember going with grandpa to work on his mining claims we would pull the claim out of an old tobacco canister and mark that the work had been done on the claim. Grandpa would take his Geiger counter out and test samples of uranium.  I remember his old jeep that would crawl along the dirt roads. .

I remember going out to his westfields early in the morning 6:30 am and weed watermelons and thin sorghum. We would work until 9:00 and we would climb in the jeep and have a can of pop and a snack Grandma had prepared.  Then around 11:00 when it started getting hot we would go back home and Grandma and Grandpa would take a siesta nap in the heat of the day with the old swamp cooler running to keep us cool.

I remember when we would go to the drive-in at St. George and have a hamburger at Larson's Frost top. I got a queen burger, a root beer and an ice-cream cone. Grandma and Grandpa would tell us about life and encourage us to make something of ourselves.  The food was good but it came with a fair amount of preaching and counseling.

I remember Grandpa on the violin and saxophone and Grandma on the piano and xylophone. They would entertain us; this was something I wanted for my children so even though I’m tone deaf I enrolled them all in band.

One summer my brother David and I got on a Greyhound bus in Salt Lake and they bus dropped us off at the exit ramp to leads, it was about ten o’clock at night. I was eleven and David was ten. I wonder what the bus driver was thinking. As we walked into town we felt like we had died and gone to heaven. I could smell the honeysuckles and flowers and we walked up to Grandpa and Grandmas. They were so excited to see us.