The Lighthouse Keeper

Grandma, Mom, Gloria, we want to honor you on this great milestone and celebrate this time with you. Within these pages you will find a lot of fun memories, and a lot of love and gratitude from all of us -Gratitude for the many ways you have shared your love for us through many acts of service and in your caring thoughtful ways throughout the years. You are our "Lighthouse Keeper".

The Lighthouse Keeper
One day while tending her father's store
a peculiar question came
"Do you know where I might find
Some light housekeeping work?"
In pondering the woman's question,
she thought of golden seas of grain,
and towering silos
just outside of town.
But, "no", thought she,
"This cannot be,
We live in Idaho".
"There are no lighthouses here",
She spoke aloud.

It makes me laugh to think of it now.
I can still remember Grandpa telling it,
with his twinkling eye
and his broad smile beneath
his balding head.
He always loved a good story.
Yet in the memory of my youth
the light was ever present
and she was the keeper of it.

The girl grew up and left that town
and met a noble man
who knew she was the one.
in a sacred place filled with light
They were sealed in eternal love.
Then came the children one by one
seven in all were welcomed to that home.

Mother and Dad gathered the light
passed down from pioneers.
The light that shone in Bethlehem
and again in a sacred grove
was carried forth to distant shores
England, Scotland, Denmark and more.
from those lands they left their homes
and came to Zion -the land of Deseret.

Through her motherly love,
her toil, her tears, her faith, her prayers;
her teaching, her kindness,

her joy and her laughter too.
Mother kept that light burning bright
in the lighthouse of my youth.
That light continues still.

-Darell S. Bagley