Funeral of Donald Douglas Lamoreaux

Donald Douglas Lamoreaux, born May 7, 1926, in Globe Arizona, to Douglas Byam & Theresa Haws Lamoreaux. He was the oldest with 2 brothers, Chester & Delwin, and a sister, Wilna. When he was 4 years old, the family moved from Globe to Phoenix because the nightmares from accidents that were happening at the mine that Grandpa worked at.
When he was 5, he did not get his way one too many time and decided to run away from home. His mom said it was so cute to watch him pack his little suit case, and walk ¼ mile down the dirt lane to Uncle Jim Haws's house. That did not last long, and returned home a much wiser 5 year old. As a youth, he was responsible to milk their 20 cows twice a day. When school started, he also started taking piano lessons. That became important latter on when he was called to play the piano for the Spanish Branch. He also played a Baritone French horn through High School. While a Junior in high school, a neighbor by the name of Helen Sabin invited him to a dance. That started a few years of dating. After High School graduation, he was drafted into the Navy where he was assigned to a LSM414. He spent time in the Philippines, and was at the invasion of Okinawa. When a shipmate was killed, dad was put in the "Engine Room" of the ship where he operated the large Fairbanks diesel engine. This job on the ship's engine later became the key for employment at Salt River Project. After his discharge from the Navy, he was invited by Dave Sabin on a trip to Yellow Stone National Park with many of his family, which included Helen. Naturally he accepted the invite. Any excuse to be around Helen was a good excuse. While at the romantic Yellow Stone River Falls, he proposed to Helen. She declined saying that she was too young (she was only 16 and that is a little young). Sometimes he would take her for a bicycle ride. She had to sit on the handle bars so he would have to help hold her on by putting an arm around her. Any excuse to be around her was a good one. In November 1946, dad received a mission call to the North Western States Mission. He left a little early so he could visit with Uncle Jim's boys in Utah. They invited him to go duck hunting with them. He doesn't hunt, but said that he would go just to be with them. He did not know when duck season was; that you can only hunt at a certain times of the day, and you can only shoot male ducks. The game warden said he was guilty just by being with them, and fined him the entire amount that he had taken with him to purchase a warm coat out in the mission field. His parents wondered why he wrote and ask for his old navy "P" coat to be sent to him. They did not find out why for years. He must have done some good out there. He served 11 months in Spokane, now there is a temple there. He served another 11 months in Richland, and now there is a temple there. After serving a 24-month mission, he returned to Salt Lake where his parents and Helen picked him up. On the drive home (they only made it to Springville Utah), dad gave Helen a diamond ring that he had acquired from a companion that had gotten it back with a "Dear John" letter. When they returned home, dad was looking for a job and his sister had a boyfriend who's father worked for Salt River Project. It turns out that SRP would only hire X-Navy men who had worked on the diesel engines, because SRP used vary large navy type equipment for power production. Dad worked on 2 of the largest diesel engines in the world while he was employed with SRP. He was later transferred to Kyren steam power plant, where he did shift work, or changed shifts every week for 32 years. He worked as the power plant operator and had the nick-name of "LAMIE". That is what lead to some of the building permits on our home, to make dark, sound proof sleeping accommodation for day sleeping. Dad was very self-sufficient. He did everything with us. Being around him, we learned plumbing, house wiring, framing, welding, concrete, auto mechanics and many other skills. Some of these skills have been past on down to his grandchildren. I have 2 sons that are GM certified auto mechanics. Dad designed and built 3 basements on our house. 1 was for year's supply and being in the 50's, also served as a bomb shelter. Another was for sleeping, food storage and an office to study in, where he got an engineer degree by correspondence. The last basement was built under the original house, from footing to footing, and supporting the original house, just so he could put in the suspended star case that he had envisioned. The entire basement was done by hand, since no equipment could be taken thru 1 basement and put under the house. We have had over 7 building permits on our house, and everything was done without hiring contractors to do any of the work. Dad & my brother Garth built the house that Garth is living in. Dad did most of the plumbing, wiring and designing for the house. He also did a lot of work on Kent & Lanae's house and cabin, and worked on Alan & Marie's house. I guess this would be a good time to mention the posterity of Dad & Mom. I am Dean, the oldest of 5 children. Next is Lanae, who currently lives in Nebraska with her husband, Kent Tryon. Then there is Paul, Garth, and Marie, all living here in Mesa. All 3 of dad's sons went on missions. There are 34 grandchildren. 6 of them are married, 5 of which were married in the Mesa Arizona Temple. 7 grandchildren have served on missions. There are 5 great-grandchildren. Speaking of missions, Dad & Mom have served on 6 missions together. This comes after years of service as a stake missionary, ward librarian, and name extraction for the church. He was twice, a set-apart temple worker and supervisor in the Arizona Temple. The 1st mission that Dad & Mom served on was in Wales, England. Dad loved the Welch language. While there, dad had the song "God be With You Till We Meet Again" sung in Welch with Mom playing the accompaniment. He recorded it, and it will be the first 2 verses of our closing song today. (you get to sing the 3rd verse, if you don't know, Welch, English is OK) While in Wales, he setup a ward library. Out of his own pocket, Dad & Mom, got the church materials catalog, went thru it, and picked out the pictures and supplies, mounted pictures, indexed and cataloged every thing so that there would be a properly supplied ward library in that area. This is also a place that learned about "Lamoreaux Time" the hard way. Dad started meetings on time. Sometimes the room was completely empty and the bishop was out in the parking lot, but the opening prayer was said on time. The leadership soon learned to announce that meetings and other gatherings would start on "Lamoreaux time". Now, there is an entire ward that has thrown out "Mormon standard time" for "Lamoreaux time". The 2nd mission was in Dearborn Michigan. The 3rd was the Sacramento California Mission. The 4th mission was the Orlando Florida Temple. The 5th mission was the Minilla Philippines Temple. After that, they served a mission at the Employment Center. These missions were a bit of a sacrifice in a family way. They missed many of their grandchildren's births, blessings, baptism's, ordinations, and marriage. The things that he did not miss were family vacations. It usually centered around the yearly Haws reunions which we would take a week and travel, see the sights, and enjoy where dad took us. It was always an adventure, and we have seen many sights from Canada, Utah, Wyoming, California and Arizona. I remember when, in the middle of the night dad had to get out of the car that we were sleeping in to chase bears off from the top of our car where we had put the food while camping in Yellow Stone Park. He also had bear trouble up at Lanae's cabin 2 years ago when a bear climbed up the wall at the sink where mom was doing dishes, ripped the screen off the building, and stuck his head in thru the window where mom was at. She called dad and it took a few persuasive smacks with a hammer on its nose to convince the bear that mom was not going to be his dinner that night. He was always ambitious, hard working, not afraid of anything, until it comes to hiking, which he says can only be done from the comfort of a car. That is the only way that he would take a hike, in the car. Another thing that Dad & Mom enjoyed doing was taking tours and visiting other temples. They have had many adventures and have seen many sights while tours. They went in a Bi-Cenennial tour of the US in 1976. They have taken Book of Mormon tours in Mexico. They have taken a church history tour back to New York that followed the saints path back thru Missouri, winter quarters and on to Salt Lake. They have traveled to many temples. 28 in the United States and several out side of the US, including, Cardston Canada, Toronto Canada, Colonal Juarez, Mexico City, Hawaii, Tokyo, Taiwan, Philippines, London, Switzerland, and Hong Kong. Besides traveling, he was always looking for ways to make things, simpler or better organized, especially for mom. Some are simple things, like the faucets in the tub are on the sidewall and easy to reach rather then way down at the feet. A pull chain over the bed to turn on and off the lights from the bed. The food storage shelves were marked with the product name on the front edge of the shelf, and sidelines painted on the shelf to make it easy to see how much of what product we needed to replenish the pantry. Dad put a coil of copper tubing in the back of the refrigerator and ran water thru it to a faucet on the outside, so we had cold water without opening the fridge. This was long before icemakers, and cold water dispensers were even thought of. He was never into practical jokes, except twice. Once when he hide the family car from where I had parked it when I had taken my brothers and sisters on a hike in the mountains. NOT FUNNY. The other was when he was working at the steam generating power plant. He put a 7 minute fuse on an M-80, (that is a very large firecracker), and set it on the turbine deck. All the employees know the feel, sounds, and vibrations of the turbine that is spinning at 3,600 RPM. Can you imagine what you would do if you were sitting just yards from tons for spinning turbine blades and it just went BOOM!!! Mom has always been at his side to help him with everything that needed to be done. This has been easy for mom to do because dad did not have any hobbies. He did not watch sports or have any bad habits, such as bowling, fishing or hunting. For all of you fishermen and Bambi killers that do not agree with this viewpoint, don't talk to me about it, this is dads viewpoint, take it up with him! He always said that he hoped he would never get old enough to have to play golf. Because of this lack of hobbies, dad needed something to do as he thought about retirement. So in 1970, he acquired an engraving machine, 3 fonts and 3 accounts. He wanted to keep it small with no time obligations, something to tinker with as time permitted. I returned from my mission in 1972 and wanted more out of the business then it was doing. I worked on increasing the business, dad worked on keeping it small. It is a nice family business with both of my brothers, 2 spouses, and 3 of my children working there. Dad has always been there to design building layouts that would be most efficient, put up walls, build offices, paint, and lots of jobs that needed to be done. As Garth put it, Dad could out work any of us and never got tired. He now has the well-deserved rest that he has earned. With his family at his side, he passed away peacefully.
Cured from what he was suffering from, and suffering from the cure.

He woke up early on a Monday morning with a few chest pains. It was not bad enough to bother any one with, but after talking to mom about it, they called Marie & Alan to come over and discuss what to do. Since this would be a good excuse to get some real testing done to find out why dad has been feeling so poorly lately, they went to the hospital. After some tests, they found that an artery in the heart was 90% clogged, and needed some attention. It was in a place that could not get a by-pass, so they opted for a stint to be put in. They were aware of a small brain tumor on his pituitary gland that was benign, not growing or causing any problems. During the heart stint procedure, the hospital let dad's blood pressure get out of control and went so high that it ruptured the tumor. The tumor swelled with blood, pressing on the pituitary gland and causing the thyroid to shut down. It also pressing on the optic nerves, making him blind and not able to open his right eye. The brain surgeon wanted to do surgery, the heart doctor said the heart could not take the shock, the brain surgeon said that he had no choice, and did the surgery. After the brain surgery, he was making progress between the over-medications and sedation's they kept giving him. After a week and a half, he was ready to be moved out of Intensive Care to a regular room. He was there only 10 minutes. Because the hospital had not put on the restrictive stockings or the pneumatic feet pumps to make circulation in his legs, all of the blood clots that had formed in his legs went into his lungs. This caused chest pains again, and he was right back in his intensive care bed before it had even got cold. The heart doctor said that to get rid of the blood clots, he needed to use blood thinner. The brain doctor said that blood thinner would cause the recent surgery in the brain to leak. It was a no-win situation. Besides all of the over-medications and sedation's, he was also on a ventilator. Recovery progress was much slower. The ventilator tube was causing sores in his mouth and on his tongue. It had been left in so long that he could no longer swallow. After 4 weeks of no food or liquids, they realized that he needed better nutrition then their drip system was providing. Not being able to swallow, they surgically put a feeding tube in his side that goes directly into the stomach. On Monday, after 5 weeks of Intensive Care, mom noticed that he was cold sweating. By the next morning, his heart rate and respiration were very high, his blood pressure had dropped, and his body temperature was over 106 degrees. He was in septic shock. The doctors did not know what was causing the infection, but they figured if they put enough different anti-biotics in him, that they would have all the possibilities covered. By Tuesday evening, they realized that they were loosing. They decided to cut him open to find out what the trouble was. At 9:30pm they found that a blood clot that they had caused had blocked the blood supply to the large intestine. It had gone "gangrene" and was poisoning him. No amount of anti-biotics was going to fix that problem. They removed the large intestine, sewed the colon closed, and put on opening on his side with a bag for the output from the intestines. Amazingly, he survived that surgery, but the amount of drugs that had been put into him made his kidneys quit working. This meant that he was on kidney dialyses. There were no more signs of improvement. The doctors had the audacity to try to let them open him up again to see if there was a blockage in the stomach. Mom finally put an end to this insanity and said NO MORE. Dad had always said that he did not want valiant efforts made to extend his life, if there was not going to be a "Quality of Life".
Mom had enough love and respect for the family that she did not say anything about letting dad go until after her grandson, Daryl, got married on Friday. On Saturday, she did not go to the hospital, but started working with Marie on making plans. Marie had been mom's right hand, transportation, and biggest support. On Monday, Lanae flew in from Nebraska, and we met at the hospital and decided to let him go at 9:00am the next morning. Tuesday, October 28 2003, we were all there, and said our good-bye's and sad cries. At 9:30am, the hospital removed the respirator. At straight up noon, he quietly and peacefully passed away with mom and his children at his side.