My in-laws, Albert and Elsie Kohler, had a
profound impact on my life and I would like to share some memories I have of
them. This is a picture of Elder Albert Kohler as a missionary in the Northern
States.
This picture of Albert Kohler was taken
probably about at the time he served as Bishop of the Midway First Ward. He was a very intelligent person and, with
training, could have become an excellent medical doctor, veterinarian,
mechanical engineer or businessman as evidenced by so many of his
accomplishments on the farm and in the community.
Whenever I would go with Barbara and
family to Midway, I would generally change clothes and try to be of some help
with the milking, haying, irrigating or whatever was happening at the time.
On one of those occasions up in the Dutch
Field, Dad Kohler and I were irrigating the alfalfa. We were there about dusk. We just had the water setting made and as he
looked out over that special piece of the farm and down to the Kohler home,
barns, etc., he said, “Joe, if in the hereafter, I were to make it to the
Celestial Degree and were assigned right here, I would be very happy and
contented.”
Often, when visiting in Midway, especially
after Church and the sisters were getting dinner ready, he would invite me to
join in some very meaningful doctrinal discussions. He was an excellent scriptorian and a deep
thinker. Whenever he was in the house
from work, it was rare that he did not have a book in his hands reading, circling
words he didn’t know and writing their definitions in the margins.
This picture of my mother-in-law, Elsie
Richards Kohler, was taken at the time she was selected to be the “Utah Mother
of the Year,” an honor she richly deserved.
The year was 1958. She and her
daughter, Marion, traveled to New York City to receive the honor along with the
other U. S.A. Mothers of the Year.
Mom Kohler was a remarkable person. So was so well-organized, a tremendous cook
and home maker with a wide variety of talents.
She literally could quote memorized poetry by the hour. She was a pillar in the Midway First
Ward. When she graduated from the Millard
Stake Academy, she was the valedictorian of the class and, as they did in those
days with the top students, she was invited almost directly to be hired as an
elementary teacher. Her first assignment
was to Midway where she met and married Albert Kohler, a recently returned
missionary.
When our daughter, Amy, was born in
Charleston, South Carolina, it was November 1953. With many of her children still at home and
it being around Thanksgiving and near Christmas time, she didn’t want to arrive
on the East coast and have to wait for the birth and so she gave me instructions,
“Joe, when Barbara has been taken into the delivery room, call me and I will
get on the bus and come to be of assistance.” (In those days, the birth mother
usually spent 3-4 days in the hospital recuperating and that would give her
time for the long bus trip across the country.)
After 30 hours of labor, when Barbara was
finally taken into the delivery room, I dutifully called the Kohler
residence. Zelda answered. I told her that Barbara was just taken into the
delivery room. She said, "Well, Mom
is already on the bus on her way."
She had awakened and said she knew Barbara needed her and was on her way
before I had called. Obviously, this was
an evidence of a mother’s intuition.
Here is a picture of the Kohler family,
all eleven of the surviving children and not long before Melvin’s tragic
accidental death. He is on the second
row to the far left and as you see, Barbara, is on the back row, next to
Roy. I am reminded of Benjamin
Franklin’s counsel in his autobiography that when you choose a wife, it went
something like this: It is better to
choose her “from a bunch” because she will likely have learned much about how
to do things and also how to get along with people. I followed that counsel and found out that he
was absolutely right!
Mom
and Dad Kohler not long before Albert’s passing away in 1965.
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