Joseph Kieth Baird

My dad lived for 90 years. He had many roles in his life. He was a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a grandfather and a great-grandfather. He held many offices and positions in the LDS church. He was a genealogy teacher, a scout master, a bishop, stake clerk and a high counselor. He served in the Army Air Force during World War II. He had a career as a master scheduler in the industrial engineering department at Boeing. He liked to read church history books and biographies of the general authorities. He liked poetry. He loved his garden and orchard. He loved to go camping with the family and hiking with the boy scouts. He wrote his own autobiography. I used that to try and write this life sketch for our father. Even reading dad's story you could tell he was as engineer. His story is precise, everything is dated and compartmentalized. There are so many stories that it was hard to chose which few to share.

Joseph Kieth Baird was born June 15th 1921, in the village of Riverside, Bingham County, Idaho. He was the 6th child of 9 children born to Asa and Winnifred Kirkman Baird. He had 2 older brothers, Asa Wayne and James Elmer and 3 older sisters, Vera, Beth and Reva, and he had 3 younger brothers, Clair Kirkman, Lewis Reed and Robert Neil Baird. Of all of his brothers and sisters Reva and Clair are the only ones still living. His brother Lewis Reed died on the same day Dad did. Dad was named after his grandfather, grandmother and uncle, Joseph and Josephine Crandall Kirkman and Joseph Kirkman Jr. Dad's father chose the middle name of Kieth but they weren't sure how to spell it so they used the grammar rule that his mother had learned in school "I" before "E" so they spelled his middle name KIETH. That spelling caused him problems his whole life, even some of the members of his own family never remember how to spell his name. In dad's family most of the boys were known by their middle names, so dad's family, friends and our mother called him Kieth. It was only after joining the military that dad was called Joe or Joseph.

Dad wrote in his life story that his first memory was of moving from one small Idaho town to another. He said that everything the family owned fit in one hay wagon. He remembered that the wheels on the wagon were 4 or 5 feet tall, much taller than a 4 year old little boy.

When the family lived in Basalt dad remembers going on the milk run with his father. They would drive around to the dairy farms and collect the milk and take it to the creamery to be processed, and then they would take the milk that was ready for delivery. One day dad slipped off the front seat of the truck and struck his head on a knob on the dashboard and cut his forehead. His father took him to the drug store and the druggist cleaned him up and put a bandage on his wound. He knew just the best medicine of all to take a small boys mind off a hurt head... a triple decker vanilla ice cream cone.

The family moved around quite a bit looking for work and farms they could afford to rent. In one place dad made friends with a boy named Yale Larson. One day Yale told dad there was going to be a prize fight on the radio. Yale's father had invited some of his friends over to listen to the fight and if Yale and dad could be quite and not get in the way of the grownups they could listen to the fight. Around 7 o'clock the boys crept quietly in and took their places. Dad thought this was quite thrilling because he had never heard a radio before and he didn't know what a prize fight was. He later found out that there were 2 men in a ring boxing to determine who would be the world heavy weight champion. It turned out to be Jack Dempsey.

In 1927 when dad started school his first teacher was Mrs. Waller. She had a great love for children but she thought left handed children were an oddity. Dad said he could still feel the sting of the ruler on the palm of his hand as the teacher tried to beat him into being right handed. All she succeeded to do was make him write upside down. He wrote upside down until he was in college and then he taught himself to write left handed the proper way.

When dad was in high school the music teacher asked him to try out for the choir. Dad told him that he couldn't sing and the teacher said of course he could sing because his brother Jim had a beautiful voice. Dad tried out and the teacher told him your right your can't sing go back to study hall. Dad always felt like he couldn't sing but I've sat next to him in church and heard him sing and he's not that bad.

Dad loved sports, baseball, basketball and he listed marbles as a sport. He wanted to play football like his older brothers but he couldn't pass the physical, they discovered he had a heart murmur. During his junior year they didn't hear the murmur so he got to play football after all and lettered both his junior and senior years. When he wasn't playing sports dad was in the school plays.

When dad wasn't in school he worked at all kinds of odd jobs trying to earn extra money. He worked loading and unloading railroad cars and trucks. He worked thinning beats and he worked on haying and thrashing crews. In 1940 he decided he need to have some transportation and he bought a 1928 4 door 4 cylinder Chevrolet touring car. He paid $15.00 it was all the money he had.

In 1942 dad got a letter from the draft board ordering him to report to Pocatello for induction and testing. He reported October 22. He took his tests and was sent home and told to be ready and back by November 5th. He was sent to Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City and was told his tests indicated a strong mechanical aptitude and he was assigned to the Army Air Force. One of the stories he liked to tell about being in the service was when they were sent across country by troop train. When they arrived in Orlando Florida they were sent to the barracks to get settled in. The sergeant told them that at night they were to take off their boots and tie the shoe laces together and hang them over a cord that was stretched out across the barracks. The sergeant didn't have to explain he just told them what to do. One of the men said he wasn't going to hang his boots he liked them right next to his bed so he could jump in them and be on his way. During the night the men were awakened by a blood curdling scream. When they turned the lights on there were thousands of cockroaches all over the floor and in the man's boots. Dad used that lesson to teach us that sometimes we don't understand the orders but it's always for our good.

Dad was given the assignments of taking many different kinds of classes dealing with the mechanics of the airplanes. He became a crew chief and it was his responsibility to check the new planes for flight worthiness. He also taught some of the classes. He would take a class then turn around and teach the class. Because of his ability to teach he was never sent overseas. Every time his unit was ready to ship out dad was reassigned. The last time he was ready to deploy the President of the United States had signed an order stating that all military personnel with 30 or more months of service didn't need to go overseas. Dad had 32 months and he was sent home.

When he got home he liked to go to the church dances and go watch his youngest brother Neil play basketball. It was at one of the dances that he saw a pretty girl and asked around to find out her name. No one knew her last name but her first name was Donna. The next time he saw her was at his brother's basketball game and she was playing the clarinet in the pep band. By the next spring they were dating. I thought it was funny the difference in the way mom and dad wrote about how they met. I just told you dad's version and mom's version of the story is... an older man that she didn't know approached her and offered to buy her one of the apples that was being sold as a fund raiser. Mom told him "No thank you I don't accept fruit from strangers" as she walked off dad called her a snot nosed little brat. But he kept asking her to let him take her home from the games and she wouldn't go unless there were other people with them. Pretty soon there were fewer and fewer people riding with them until it was just the two and of them and they were officially dating. When dad proposed mom was only 17 years old and dad was 26 years old she said she was too young to get married. So they waited until she turned 18 and after she graduated from high school. They were married in the LDS Idaho Falls temple 9 days after she graduated from high school.

Soon they found out they were going to have a baby and then Linda Renae was born. When dad was farming he hurt his back and was told he couldn't farm anymore. So he decided to used the G.I. Bill and go to school. He chose Utah State Agricultural College, department of Aeronautical Technologies. Because of his training in the Army Air Force there were classes that he didn't have to take and some where the instructor would ask him to teach or explain a concept or principle. While they were living in Logan going to school their second child was born and named Brent Keith. They wanted Brent to have his father's middle name but not the hassles so they spelled his name KEITH.

Near graduation representatives from Boeing Airplane Company in Seattle and Lockheed Martin in California did a recruitment tour of the school. Dad interviewed with both of them and decided that Boeing had the best offer. So after graduating they went to Idaho to visit family and get their things that were being stored there and moved to Seattle.

Dad worked for Boeing for over 30 years. He was an Industrial Engineer in the Master Scheduling Department. Dad's job was to schedule when every bit and part and piece had to be ordered, delivered and put together so the airplane would be finished on time. There were times when we didn't know what dad was working on because it was top secret government contracts. He worked on the schedules for the minute man rocket and the Bomark missile. They didn't have computers when dad started so they would give him a big roll of paper and a long table and he would hand write out the 2 year schedule to build the plane from start to finish.

While living in Seattle their last two children were born, Bruce Lynn and Karen Marie. Mom and dad bought their current house in August 1954 for $11,750. Their house payments were never over $100.

While living in Seattle dad held many positions in the church. He taught genealogy classes in Sunday school. He was a bishop for 5 years. He was a scout master. He really liked being a scout master. He liked to hike with the scouts and at least once he hiked the 50 mile Cascade crest trail. He also was stake clerk and a high counselor.

As a family we went camping as often as dad's work and church callings would permit. He liked the ocean or the mountains equally. Several times this past year dad and I talked about driving out to the ocean but his health just didn't permit him to travel that far so we would go to Edmonds, Mukilteo, Kayak Point or Golden Gardens and he would sit and watch the boats, the water and the people and sometimes talk about our camping trips.

When the Seattle Temple opened dad was called as a temple worker. I think of all the callings dad had in the church this was his favorite. Several times he was a shift supervisor and his job was working out the shift schedule. For many years once a week dad would go to the temple right after work then go home. After he retired he and mom could go together. For them it was like going on a date every week.

One of the biggest heartbreaks of his life was when Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was something he couldn't fix. He could fix anything but not this. When Linda died I think a bit of dad died with her. She was his first born and daddy's girl. Our family life was never the same.

As time went on Bruce and Brent married and had children and dad found a new love in his grandchildren. He loved holding them when they were babies. When they got old enough he took them out in the garden with him and taught them to plant seeds. We have some cute pictures of dad with the grandchildren in the garden planting seeds or picking out their Halloween pumpkins.

He loved telling people that he was a great grandfather. He liked to show the kids pictures to anyone that came to the house.

In 2001 life changed forever when our mother was diagnosed with cancer. They flew back to Philadelphia for treatment. When mom died in 2005 his life kind of stopped. He wrote a big long detailed history but he ends with mom's death. He didn't continue writing except to go back and clarify earlier life events or add earlier life events.

It was only a couple of years after mom died that I noticed things just weren't right with dad. He kept asking me the same question over and over again. It was like he could remember he had a question he just couldn't remember that I had given him an answer. I kept mentioning this to his doctors and they reminded me he was old. Finally we were sent to a neurologist and dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. About a month after his diagnosis I found out he didn't know what Alzheimer's was he didn't know what was happening to him. I had bought a book called What's Happening to Grandpa?; it explains what Alzheimer's is in terms that children can understand. When he got through he asked me if he was going to forget who his children and grandchildren are and I told him yes that he was but that we would remember him. He said he didn't want to live long enough to forget us.

This past year he was so concern about his brother Reed. He'd been diagnosed with lung cancer. He kept asking me if I would take him to Idaho for his funeral. I told him we would have to see when the time came. Last week after a month in the hospital I brought dad home and he was admitted to Hospice. The very next day he took a dramatic turn for the worse. So did his brother Reed. We have a family group page on Facebook and we were keeping the family up to date on both dad and his brother. Their decline was almost the same. I announced that dad had passed away at 9:25am on October 24th 2011. That evening my cousin Star posted that the brothers were in heaven together, that her dad had passed away at 6:20pm the very same day. Uncle Reed's funeral was scheduled for 11:00am in Pocatello Idaho. With the time difference Uncle Reed's funeral ended just as dads was starting.

One of dad's biggest fears was forgetting the family. He never did. In the hospital they kept asking him who I was and he answered she's my baby, she's Karen. He had pictures of all the members of family and he would show them to the nurses and tell them all their names.

As hard as it is to have dad die it was a blessing that he was able to go before his greatest fears were realized. He could still carry on conversations. He could still read his books and he still remembered his family. He loves us all so much, much more than we ever could realize. He was so grateful to all the people who helped him. He was so pleased when people from the ward would come over and clean out his garden and orchard. He was so grateful to the Tuckers and everything they've done for us. They are home teachers that have gone above and beyond the call of duty. They are my heroes for all they have done to help dad.

Dad had a strong and abiding love of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Even with his memory loss he still had a testimony and he still tried to read his scriptures. He longed to be able to go back to the temple. He wasn't afraid to die. His testimony of the plan of salvation and of a hereafter made the idea of dying not so frightening. To him it meant that he would be with his mother, dad and brothers and sister. He would be with Linda and most importantly he would be with the love of his life... he would be with Donna for all eternity.

© 2011 Evergreen Washelli. All rights reserved. Funeral Website by Beyond Indigo Funerals.