William Burr Christenson

My father's father, my grandpa, was William Burr Christenson.  Everyone called him Bill.  I have fond memories of him and can still picture him out in the garden or tinkering around the shop at his and grandma's home in Heyburn, Idaho.  My picture is of him being outside in the yard in his overalls. He had a very large garden.  Grandma would grow her flowers on the first few rows and then he would have his vegetables on the next dozen or so rows.  He was always happy and smiling.  I never heard him use bad language or say unkind words.  He loved his family and enjoyed being around them.  We would often go to visit him and grandma on Sunday evenings.  He would almost always share with us something that he had read about that day from the church news, a church magazine, or a message from his church meeting.  He never did it in a big, formal or preachy way - he would just bring it up in the conversation.  I never thought a lot about it then, but now I cherish the memories of those moments when he would share the gospel and his testimony with us in such an easy and natural way.   I had no doubt that he knew that the gospel of Jesus Christ was true.

Though I don't remember a lot of details, I do remember our family going on day or weekend trips with him.  I know that we went up to Lake Cleveland and other fishing places.  He liked to fish and enjoyed the out of doors.

He was very proud of his children and grandchildren.  I know he was proud of my dad and his success with his auto body business.  My dad grew up helping grandpa out in his car repair shop.  Grandpa was honored that dad had followed in his footsteps.  One time Grandpa came up missing.  He finally showed up at my dad's shop.  He had walked over from Heyburn to visit dad at his body shop in Burley.

When I was around high school age, Grandpa had a stroke.  Though he recovered from it in most ways, his speech never was the same again.  It was very hard to understand what he wanted to tell us.  Grandma would do her best to try to decipher his garbled words.  Mostly she would try to guess.  We learned that there was one word he could still say well - 'no'. Sometimes he would get so frustrated and discouraged, and other times he would just shake his head and laugh.  It was sad, but we were glad to have him with us for a few more years.

I miss him and love him and appreciate his great example and the way he raised my father and my aunts and uncles who are all great examples to me.