![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Allen-AB-01.jpg\" "\\"Allen-AB-01\\"")
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With permission from Judy, Scott, Kent and Rex, my sister and brothers, I was honored to represent them at my father\u2019s funeral and sketch the life of Allen Butters, our dear, sweet, playful, amazing father.\u00a0I\u2019d like to enlarge my father\u2019s circle of friends and share his life map with you \u2014 my readers.<\/span><\/p>\n Thirty-four years ago, when I was pregnant with my daughter Megan and living on a remote ranch in Idaho, Dad and Mom came up to help out. During the first two days of their five-day stay, Dad got busy and oiled my sewing machine, my bike, really anything that had moving metal parts, mended garden hoses, dug potatoes AND carved his name in several discreet places for me to discover later on. Mom sewed baby clothes, mopped floors, did some canning, and helped me make cheese and butter with the milk from my cow. Underneath all my busyness, I was troubled and uncertain.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Just before Dad left, he took me aside. \u201cThis place isn\u2019t right for you. Helen hasn\u2019t thrown her head back and laughed for five whole days.\u201d<\/p>\n Engagement Day, Easter Sunday, 1941<\/p><\/div>\n I am so proud to lay claim to a father who sought laughter\u2014the toss your head back, laugh with abandon, surprise variety. His formula was simple. He didn\u2019t watch funny movies. He didn\u2019t need booze to let loose. He wasn\u2019t a comedian, although he loved a good joke. His laughter came piggyback. If he could get us to laugh, then he laughed. He was the Bob Hope of our lives\u2014replacing hopelessness with play and laughter.<\/p>\n The latest in adult self-help books promote recalling, knowing and honoring your inner child. Sticking with strict adulthood just isn\u2019t healthy, and Dad lived the concept like a casebook illustration. That\u2019s not to say Dad didn\u2019t stand like a man when it came to providing for his family and his neighbors.<\/p>\n When he asked Mom to marry him, they got dreamy about their future together, as lovers will. On that day, he made her a promise that he kept with absolute, unrelenting resolve. Since they couldn\u2019t afford a farm that would allow them to work together, he would work an outside job and she would be free to create, full-time, a home, no matter how hard it got. Dad gave us something precious, a mother at home. During summers, Dad left early each morning for his factory job. In contrast, we awoke every day to a fresh bowl of fruit, a breakfast prepared from scratch, handmade clothes and the day\u2019s wholesome activities mapped out. In this he was selfless. On our fridge he posted his commitment: \u201cThe best thing you can give your children is to love their mother.\u201d For the 40 years my parents raised children, they celebrated their anniversaries alone in our living room. They\u2019d drape a card table with a cloth, put us all to bed, light some candles, eat a private dinner and dance. In our living room, celebrating their marriage, my parents danced to Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, The Ink Spots, and Frank Sinatra.<\/p>\n For 40 plus years, he worked a \u2018sometimes toxic\u2019 noisy factory job without complaint. For 25 years, he supplemented our family income by working nights at a full-service gas station just around the corner from his day job at the American Can Company. There, he waited on cars in a pressed uniform, filling up his customers with his can-do, will-do attitude\u2014service with an Allen smile\u2014his version of a \u201cfill\u201d station.<\/p>\n Dad was known for his green thumb. Growing up, we ate the best food on earth. I am so very pleased to go off and be his \u201cfarmer daughter\u201d and put all that he taught me to use. His passion for feeding friends and neighbors became my clarion call. I\u2019ve added a few more zeros to the number of people I feed, but it\u2019s our Dad in me. I tell people I love them by feeding them \u2026 again, something I learned from a pro.<\/p>\n During one of his visits to my Idaho farm, I got up real early\u2014Allen style. Thinking I was first up, I headed to my hen house. There sat Dad on a kitchen chair he\u2019d carried with him to the chicken coop, waiting for dawn to arrive\u2014enjoying the soft cooing sounds chickens make to greet daybreak.<\/p>\n When Mom was pregnant with her first child, Judy, she put her newly enlisted Air Force husband on a train for Texas. Off he went, duty-bound. His sense of purpose was so intense that taking care of Mom, us kids, friends and neighbors would have been impossible without his passion for humor and play. We\u2019ll miss his antics\u2014the pennies behind our ears, the drops of water on our sleeping faces.<\/p>\n Eventually, some of Dad\u2019s grandkids finally caught on and got him back. Once, in the middle of the night, when Mom opened her bedroom door, a string of firecrackers went off. Another time, an elastic wrapped around the lever on a sink sprayer watered Dad when he turned on the faucet.<\/p>\n Given the hardships my father endured in his youth, he had every right to turn out bitter \u2026 a chip-on-the-shoulder kind of guy. Not Allen. He grew up dirt poor in a family of eight. Eventually, they lost their farm in the Depression and headed to the city for factory jobs. As a young man, he walked home from school along the railroad tracks, picking up chunks of coal that fell from speeding coal-fired freight trains. The coal went home to his mother for cooking their evening meal. At night, he cut a fresh piece of cardboard for the holes in the soles of his shoes. On weekends, he laid shiny tin on the bottom of a nearby river so he could easily eye a carp, should one swim by, and nab it with a net. He sold the carp he caught for a penny a piece.<\/p>\n Once a week, during the dead of winter, his mother gave him one apple from their root cellar to keep him from getting scurvy. When he graduated from high school, he didn\u2019t attend the ceremony because he was ashamed of his clothing. He didn\u2019t own any dress clothes and wore hand-me-downs.<\/p>\n In spite of their hardships, he and his dad, Henry Butters, learned how to tap dance, and the two of them traveled around Morgan winning tap dance contests. Decades later, when Allen was in his late 70s, our family doctor told him that at his age he should come in for a treadmill test.<\/p>\n Incredibly healthy his entire life, Dad showed up wearing the same tap dance shoes he owned as a young man. He hit the treadmill dancing, on and off, turning circles until his laughing doctor agreed, the treadmill test wasn\u2019t necessary.<\/p>\n During prohibition, his dad, Henry, was the Sheriff of Morgan County. Behind his badge, Henry kept a little secret\u2014he made and drank his own moonshine. Hidden under the floorboards of their barn, Allen eventually figured out what his father was up to. He and his brother, Dean, got brave one night, lifted the floorboards and drank some of Henry\u2019s home brew. Afterwards, they left for a community dance.<\/p>\n Halfway through the dance, the potent illegal liquor got the better of Dean. He fell on the floor saying, \u201cSheriff Butters makes the best moonshine on earth.\u201d<\/p>\n Allen\u2019s mother, Artie, equaled her husband in character. Once when the men were downstairs behind a locked door playing poker, Artie lit some sulfur on fire and lowered it down the clothes chute. She ended up catching the house on fire, making good her claim to end their poker game.<\/p>\n Allen Butters also had every right to grow up afraid, tightfisted and miserly.<\/p>\n But I have never met anyone, anywhere, as generous and giving as our Dad.<\/p>\n No one ever left our house empty handed. He sent people away with mind-teasing paper puzzles. Food. Garden produce. Snickers candy bars. For Halloween, he gave away piggy banks made with leftover tin from the American Can Company. Trick-or-treaters left our house with a few starter pennies jingling in cans. And ropes. Everyone who knew Dad has one of his ropes. He inherited his father\u2019s manual rope maker, now considered a valuable antique, and with it he made probably 1,000 ropes, all in all. Toward the end, as Dad\u2019s dementia worsened, a good samaritan neighbor visited him routinely and kept him supplied in twine, always being kind enough to act like he was seeing Dad\u2019s rope machine for the first time.<\/p>\n I actually grew into adulthood fantasizing that if I could just own my own truck, I could lend it out like Dad did. With a mixture of pride and generosity, he was the owner of the neighborhood truck. Our neighbor\u2019s construction and manure needs were my Dad\u2019s calling\u2014kind of like \u201cMike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.\u201d Salt Lake Tribune, December 20, 2002<\/p>\n OGDEN \u2014 Allen Butters, 84, received a United States patent for a bracket for storing cutting boards beneath kitchen cabinets. Butters is a lifelong Ogden, Utah, resident. Grandway USA, in Salt Lake City, purchased the license to produce, market and distribute the Hide-Away Cutting Board, now available nationwide at Lowe\u2019s Hardware.<\/p>\n Buy Allen Butters\u2019 Hide-away Cutting Board at MaryJanesFarm.org!<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n He was the quintessential recycler. I remember his flower planters made from discarded tires. And fruit pickers\u2014during one of my training sessions with an organic farm apprentice, I showed him how to make one of Dad\u2019s fruit pickers. He pointed out that he\u2019d recently seen a similar device in a garden catalog.<\/p>\n And Dad\u2019s dust-mulch planting method, the clever way he planted potatoes, bird feeders made with upside-down garbage can lids, his mobiles made from discarded computer discs … on and on.<\/p>\n Eventually, my brother, Scott, facilitated a patent on one of his many inventions\u2014a device that holds and hides a cutting board beneath your kitchen cabinet. Filling in for Dad perfectly, Scott said, \u201cLet\u2019s give his cutting board invention away at the funeral.\u201d Both my brother, Kent, and my son, Emil, piped up, \u201cAnd Snickers candy bars.\u201d<\/p>\n For 45 years, my father was a Mormon \u201chome teacher.\u201d Once a month he would visit four families. Some years he was assigned six or seven families, which meant he spent more than one night a week \u201ccalling.\u201d<\/p>\n He was a person who was \u201ccalled\u201d to \u201ccall.\u201d<\/p>\n I remember he always walked. And it wasn\u2019t until our next-door neighbor, Virginia, was put into a nursing home several miles away, crippled with multiple sclerosis, that he drove. Every month, like clockwork, my father visited Virginia for 10 years, until she died.<\/p>\n He was assigned Mormons and non-Mormons. Maybe it was an attitude unique to my father, but as a home teacher, I know he never pushed religion on anybody. Looking back, I think on an unconscious level, it wasn\u2019t the doctrine part of religion that motivated Dad, it was the social part\u2014the community part of it.<\/p>\n Instead, he planted trees in people\u2019s yards. His trees are big now, dozens of them up and down several streets in our neighborhood. For the older \u201cwidow ladies,\u201d he was a handyman for plumbing projects, car repairs, sewing machine maintenance and the like.<\/p>\n He supervised our neighborhood cannery, keeping the machinery in tip-top shape. Two blocks away, the cannery was staffed by volunteer women and children during the \u201950s and \u201960s. My father created community with an oilcan! He was a great believer in oil, always visiting neighbors with an oilcan in hand. Every kid on our block had a well-oiled tricycle\/bicycle and there wasn\u2019t a squeaky door in the neighborhood. He\u2019d be visiting with someone and without missing a beat, he\u2019d reach up and oil a door hinge. Sometimes it dripped onto carpets and floors and the women would roll their eyes.<\/p>\n Dad\u2019s knives were kept razor sharp. He always kept a sharpening stone handy. No one who knew our dad ever had a dull knife, a dull pair of scissors, or a dull lawn mower.<\/p>\n And he always delivered food, fresh food, baked food, sweet food. Once he developed dementia, he put a Snickers candy bar in the mailbox every day for our mailman.<\/p>\n He was big on games like lawn croquet and horseshoes. In our backyard, Dad engineered a permanent horseshoe-throwing pit so the men could stop and pitch a few, always a good excuse to laugh and spend time together. The last time I visited him at home, I beat him in a game of croquet. It may have been a first\u2014he is known for winning.<\/p>\n We also had a ping-pong table in our basement. On that same table, we girls laid out our sewing materials and patterns for cutting. We sewed our own clothes, even men\u2019s suits and coats and curtains. The men also used the table for cutting up deer meat every fall. Covered with tablecloths, that same table served Thanksgiving feasts over the years to dozens of relatives and neighbors. Most of Dad\u2019s best friends lived barely a wave away.<\/p>\n Throughout my adult life, I\u2019ve lived in many places. Dad and Mom always came to see me. Once, it meant traveling in a small plane into Idaho\u2019s Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, 30 miles from any road, landing in a pasture. A week later, when the pilot came to pick them up, Dad rolled a huge cross-section of a tree (cut by hand with a cross-cut saw), down to the airstrip asking if he could get some help loading it in the plane. He wanted to take it home and use it as a souvenir table top in our backyard, which he did.<\/p>\n I felt like the \u201cairstrip\u201d was a dicey proposition at best, and I never wanted extra weight on board. If lift-off didn\u2019t occur at just the right moment, the plane would either slam into the canyon wall or plunge 500 feet into the river. Years later, our pilot that day would die during lift-off from the Moose Creek runway.<\/p>\n As we were saying our goodbyes, Dad said what he always said, absolutely always, without fail: \u201cDon\u2019t say goodbye, that means forever. Say, \u2018See you later.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n On July 27, 2003, in a chapel full of flowers, family, friends and neighbors, we gathered together for Allen\u2019s lift-off \u2014 to witness his approach.<\/p>\n It was perfect … his rudder true. He banked just right.<\/p>\n \t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Allen J. Butters, 1918-2003 With permission from Judy, Scott, Kent and Rex, my sister and brothers, I was honored to represent them at my father\u2019s funeral and sketch the life of Allen Butters, our dear, sweet, playful, amazing father.\u00a0I\u2019d like … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Allen-1941-engagement-day.jpg\" "\\"Allen-1941-engagement-day\\"")
Push Along<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Allen-boys-on-bike.jpg\" "\\"Allen-boys-on-bike\\"")
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<\/p>\nWe All Have Work<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nFrom Allen’s “Make Life Fun” Manual:<\/h3>\n
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![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Allen-kids-in-sleeping-bags.jpg\" "\\"Allen-kids-in-sleeping-bags\\"")
<\/li>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Allen-swinging.jpg\" "\\"Allen-swinging\\"")
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Allen-swinging-summer.jpg\" "\\"Allen-swinging-summer\\"")
<\/li>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Allen-rex-in-toy-car.jpg\" "\\"Allen-rex-in-toy-car\\"")
<\/li>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Allen-birthday.jpg\" "\\"Allen-birthday\\"")
<\/li>\nLet No One Shirk<\/h3>\n
With a Heart Full of Song<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Allen-family.jpg\" "\\"Allen-family\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Allen-in-potato-patch.jpg\" "\\"Allen-in-potato-patch\\"")
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<\/p>\n
\nAnd just like Mike Mulligan, he was an inventor\u2014way ahead of everyone else. When he encountered a problem, off he would go to his workshop to cleverly devise a solution. From my youth, I remember many of Dad\u2019s clever gadgets and ideas, like a boot scraper with side brushes attached to our porch, a similar design now for sale in places like Wal-Mart.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Allen-Butters-R1-E038.jpg\" "\\"Allen-Butters-R1-E038\\"")
<\/p>\n\nOgden Resident Patents Invention<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Allen-thanksgiving-dinner.jpg\" "\\"Allen-thanksgiving-dinner\\"")
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<\/p>\n