Edmond Cannon Evans - My Uncle Ted

My Uncle Ted, though small and wiry, as any good Cannon would be, loomed large in my world as a child. He had a "high Cannon forehead" under his dark hair and glasses, and full lips that helped him play the tuba as a boy. He moved quickly and was a little bit gruff, but he did what needed to be done and for all the right reasons. I loved him like a father. He had profound influence on me throughout my life.  I felt his divine spirit nourish and encourage my heart in the hopes of all that is good as I watched him waste away his days in service to us all. True, as a young child I did not love the sight of him coming up the street to our house with his black leather doctors bag when I was sick, but even then I knew his intent was to minister to me. I hid in the closet once, encouraged by my sister Lark, who was also hiding, under the bed. Life is full of opposition, and Uncle Ted was there for us, on both sides of that heavenly designed spectrum.

Uncle Ted took me along for the ride on many of their family adventures and treated me like one of his own children.  We went jeeping up the Weber and boating at Rockport. It was Uncle Ted who taught me how to water ski. In our travels he would buy us all of the ketchup burgers we could eat at Dee's Drive-in. They were five for a dollar. And although the boat seemed to always need repairs, and his many church and work duties would delay our outings, we were grateful for the chance to come along for the ride.

Uncle Ted had created a haven in his backyard where we occasionally had family barbecues with the cousins. He always served grape juice spiked with Sprite, and there was an endless supply of fresh and canned fruit to be shared, particularly peaches and grapes. His gardens were beautiful and abundant. Uncle Ted, along with Uncle Bob, were also the primary caretakers of the many gardens of the Garden Park Ward. Additionally, in their spare time they had professional and personal greenhouses in which they grew tomatoes, geraniums and impatiens, among other things. Sometimes, in rare moments of need our help was enlisted to help this family business, which I think was designed to help the younger generation learn responsibility. We gave our best, if not very unskilled efforts to the cause.  Somehow it seemed enough to them.

With Eric and Scott, Pat and I spent long summer days playing in Uncle Ted's backyard. I loved their tree house forest, and we played endless hours of wiffle ball and touch football near their weeping willow tree. These were happy summer days with our cousins!  Uncle Ted also poured a cement court in the lower southeast corner of their yard where we played basketball in the summer and went ice skating and played hockey on winter days. I have memories of helping Eric at times with his rigorous Saturday chores because they had season's passes to Alta. Uncle Ted took them skiing every week when the work was done.

(As a sidenote, during this season of cousin play, I remember one night when I was 12 years old. We were having a sleepover with Eric and Pat in our Gilmer Drive home, I had a dream in which I was serving as a missionary on a tropical island. When I awoke, I expressed to them that if I could go to a tropical island, I would surely serve a mission! This, of course, became my reality and I was very grateful to be called to serve in the Dominican Republic nine years later.)

Uncle Ted was the primary architect and builder of "the Big House", up the Weber, which was completed around 1950 after his mission.  Despite the fact that our parents did not spend much time at the cabin, we kids loved to go there as often as we could  Uncle Ted was occasionally the host for our cabin stay when he was able.  Saturday mornings were particularly memorable with his pancake breakfasts complete with hot chocolate, orange juice and bacon. While the cousins played cards and enjoyed fun outdoor adventures, Uncle Ted would invariable by fixing fences, repairing pipes or doing other such things, as was Uncle Bob.

Uncle Ted also had a sensitive, artistic side. Grandma Bea frequently proclamed that "Ted wrote the best letters!" He was called to served a mission to the British Isles and Aunt Gloria happily agreed to wait for him while he was gone. They exchanged frequent love letters which she cherished and tucked safely away in a little shoe box for future reading. Over time, as they married, finished his medical training and served a couple years in the military, their young family grew and moved on. The box of precious letters became lost but not forgotten in her mother's home, and there was a constant passive searching for them over the ensuing 60 years. As Aunt Gloria's mother, Aunt Lois, passed away, and then her brother, Jim, there was increasing distress over these lost letters, and a more heightened search began. The house was sold, and on the day before it was to be knocked down and rebuilt, the new owned looked up and saw in the rafters, a box...filled with old letters from the past. These cherished words came at a crucial time to Aunt Gloria, when Uncle Ted was no longer able to express with his lips words of comfort and love for his beloved eternal companion. Aunt Gloria told me that Heavenly Father waited long enough to help her find them that she would know without a doubt that it was a miracle, a gesture of love for her.

In addition to being a pediatrician and a faithful and hard working family man, Uncle Ted was a spiritual man as well.  He served twice as bishop of the Garden Park ward, as a devoted and well respected scoutmaster, a Primary teacher and high counselor, and a senior medical missionary with Aunt Gloria for ten years after they retired. During these years I was more separated from Uncle Ted and Aunt Gloria, raising a family of my own. but I always cherished the brief times we could spend together.

For one of his last gestures of selfless service, Uncle Ted  remodeled "the Big House", after building their own family cabin, for our family, at his own expense and with the last reserves of energy he had in this life to give. He did this as he was turning 80. He worked mostly alone, sometimes catching an infrequent vacationer to hold a board or carry a heavy box. He would be listening to faint strains of opera on his transistor radio and stop infrequently for a bite to eat.  I found the ski poles he used to stable himself as he walked in his final months on the back porch of the Big House where he had come to inspect his work. The next time I saw him, he needed family assistance to go anywhere outside of the house....

My last visit with Uncle Ted was a very sweet capstone to a blessed earthly relationship with this Christlike man. He was nearing the end of a season tortured by Alzheimer's disease through which he had lost most of his abilities for movement and expression. We had sat visiting quietly with Aunt Gloria and young Ted for most of an hour as he looked out the front window at an early spring snow. As his caregiver wheeled him in to say goodnight I saw my opportunity and jumped up to take his hands and express my love to him. Bending down, I put my face close to his and lovingly said, Uncle Ted, this is Nancy.  He slowly gave my hands a good squeeze and softly whispered an emphatic, "wonderful!" I expressed my love and admiration for him and he continued to smile peacefully and squeeze my hands, looking into the distance.  I knew he knew and loved me in that moment. I was so grateful for this opportunity to have his noble, eternal spirit wash over me and nourish my soul, one last time. Ten days later we heard the news of his passing.

I was touched by the story told at Uncle Ted's funeral of the time when he had been in a near fatal car accident with his son, Scott, and a couple other young men from their ward. They had been in a head-on collision with a drunk driver, who was also very seriously injured. Their lives had been miraculously spared, but it took many months for them to recover.  As soon as it was physically possible for him to get himself out of bed, Uncle Ted dressed and slipped out of the house to drive up to the hospital where the man who had run into them lay. He asked this young father if he knew who he was. He did.  To this man's surprise, Uncle Ted did not seem angry but only offered comfort and support for his young family. While there, he learned that this man had lost his job the day of the accident, and regretted very much having had too much to drink to drown his woes. Uncle Ted followed his progress and provided their family assistance, including medical care at no cost for his children until he could get back on his feet.

Elder Russell M. Nelson had many encouraging words to say at the conclusion of Uncle Ted's funeral, but the ones that impressed me the most came by way of apostolic blessing pronounced upon Uncle Ted and his family. He said the blessing he gave was from the Lord, and that he would serve only as mouthpiece. He then quoted what the Lord said to Nephi in Helaman 10: 4-5, changing the words to fit the occasion:  
"Blessed art thou, (Ted) for those things which thou hast done; for I have beheld how thou hast with ^bunwearyingness declared the word, which I have given unto thee, unto this people. And thou hast not feared them, and hast not sought thine ^cown life, but hast sought my ^dwill, and to keep my commandments.

 5 And now, because thou hast done this with such unwearyingness, behold, I will bless thee (and thy family) forever;"

I am so grateful for Uncle Ted in my life!  Such a hard working, humble and loving man blesses all who know him!  May he know of our love for him as he enjoys more fully of the blessings of eternity.