GlenndeavourA Wonderful Adventure

One may wonder what a picture of our son,

Randy, has to do with this tribute to Alton,well,

thereby hangs a tale.

As the obiturary states, Alton was preceeded in

death by a son named Mark

I was Mark’s teacher at Bill Reed Junior High School

in Loveland, Colorado. Mark was blind. The pricipal

said to go easy on him because of his disability.I gave

him a hard time and he loved every moment of  it.

I used to pick up Mark at his home and take him

to confirmation class along with my son,Randy.

Alton had an old car sitting around at their home

and when we go home from confirmtion class

the boys would sit in the old car and pretend like

they were driving.

I had bought this Model A-193-five window- in Hills,

Minnesota when Randy was five years old. It was

stored in Grandma Rye’s garage until we moved to

Colorado and Randy was in junior high. We towed

it to Loveland and Randy preceed to restore the

vehicle which he did successfully.

I started to check out the country roads in the

area and found one North of Loveland that had

no ditches and I thought: I’m going to let Mark drive.

Now, my job at the school was all ready precarious

and I wondered what would happen if anyone found

out that I let a blind man(Mark) drive. No one found

out bet Randy and I picked up Mark and drove out

to the country road.

I said to Mark,”You’re going to drive” and then Mark

just screamed for joy. When he shifted gears he ground

the gears as all people do when first shifting a Model

A Ford, and I said to Mark,” can’t you even drive?”

and he screamed some more.

It was a joyous occassion for one and all.

Six months later Mark passed away and then years

later when I went to teach on the Navajo Indian

Reservation in Chinle, Arizona .

Mrs Askeland, Ione, then began to send clothes

with me to give to the Indians.

Ione had a friend who had a next to new store and

people would consign clothing there and if they

didn’t sell in so many days her friend would ask the

people to come and pick them up and these people

would say, give them to Ione and Alton.

Our friend, Dave Tomilson, a great car dealer,

had rented from me when he was 18 and was now

providing me with great used cars at wholesale prices

and he would leave the cars with ALTON to fill them

up with qualilty used clothing for the Indians.

Alton must have packed clothing into more than

a hundred cars that I sold on the reservation.

After I left the reservation and moved to Phoenix

Alton and Ione contiued to fill up cars with clothes

that I shared with the Angel Closet at Tolleson

High School- clothes for the children of migrant

workers.

Ione came to visit some relatives in  Sun City.

She came on the bus and brought two big suit

cases full of clothes. I took her to the schoo and

she met Mrs. Garcia of the Angel Closet and Mrs.

Garcia took her to the superintend in honor of

all their clothes dontions to  the children

God has no hands but our hands

to do his work today-

ALTON AND IONE WERE GOD’S HANDS.

Sister Theresa said that we can’t all do great things

but we can do small things in great ways.

These deeds were done by ALTON AND IONE

IN MEMORY OF THEIR SON, MARK-BLIND DRIVER

The scool and sent Alton and Ione a big certificate

of  appreciation and they didn’t open it for a  while

because they taught it was some sale gimmick

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