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Office of Gov. Dennis Daugaard
500 E. Capitol Ave.
Pierre, S.D. 57501
605-773-3212
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, June 13, 2014
CONTACT: Tony Venhuizen or Kelsey Pritchard at 605-773-3212
EDITORS/NEWS DIRECTORS: Please consider the following column from Gov. Dennis Daugaard. For an audio recording of the Governor’s weekly column, visit http://news.sd.gov/player.aspx.
Remembering Dad
A column by Gov. Dennis Daugaard:
My dad was born in 1914, one hundred years ago, in the bedroom on our farm near Dell Rapids. My grandparents had purchased the farm just three years earlier. In those days before electricity, the farmhouse was still lit at night by kerosene lamps and heated by a wood stove. In later years, Dad told me about growing up on that farm, when horsepower still meant the Belgian team that pulled our plow. He described how he would sometimes drive the wagon to Dell Rapids, and then fall asleep on the way home, because the horses knew the way back.
In the 1950s, after my grandparents had died, Dad mortgaged the farm to buy out his brother and sister. He and my mother struggled to make the mortgage payments, even as they raised my two sisters and me. Our small farm wasn’t big enough to make a living from farming alone, so Dad always had an off-farm job, too. He worked in town during the day, and farmed evenings and weekends. His work ethic was unmatched. To me, he was big, strong and invincible.
When I was a senior in high school, our family had financial problems. The economy was weak, Dad was laid off his cabinetmaking job, and he couldn’t find another job. Dad had to auction the livestock and equipment to repay our bank operating loan. That was a hard day for Dad, and I know he felt like he had failed our family.
Dad’s options were limited, as he searched for another job. Dad was born profoundly deaf, so he could neither hear nor speak, and most jobs required hearing or speaking. In the end, Dad found a job as a janitor, working at night. Later he moved to a day shift, and my mother, herself severely deaf, joined him, working also as a janitor. Their salaries, together, were enough to make the mortgage payment, and Dad rented our quarter section to a neighbor.
Dad died ten years ago, in the farmhouse where he was born, just after turning 90 years old. By material and other measures, Dad was not a successful man. He was neither wealthy, nor famous, nor powerful. He died with very little. But in my eyes, he was successful beyond measure. He lived his life honestly, and bore many trials without complaint. He loved my mother and was attentive to her needs. He gave me and my sisters love, set limits and taught us that all work has dignity. He never used his disability as an excuse, and he did not let it define him. He was the best father one could ever want.
On this Father’s Day, I remember my father, and thank God for the generous gift of his life. He may not have been able to hear or speak, but the way he lived his life spoke volumes to me.
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