Memories of Grandpa Bateman

Late Friday night (November 30) I received a text message from my mom saying that her dad was in the ICU at the Davis Hospital (Utah) suffering from a brain aneurysm and that he wasn't expected to live long.  I didn't know what a brain aneurysm was so I looked it up with some help from Google.  It is where a blood vessel bursts in the brain.  Theodore Wylie Clay Bateman died about 12:45am on Sunday, December 2, 2012.  He was 86 years old.  He was proceeded in death by his wife of 51 years, Georgie Gay, and 2 daughters Launi and Gayla.  He has 11 living children and I don't even know the number of grand children or great-grand children.  Lots and lots.

April 15, 1985



Throughout my childhood, my grandparents lived in Upstate New York.  I lived near them until I was 4, when my family moved to Utah.  When I was about to turn 8, we learned that they were coming west on a trip and would be in Mesa, Arizona at my Aunt Teddie's house on my birthday.  Our family made a plan to be there as well and we had a big family reunion, including me getting baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I asked my grandpa to baptize me.

When I was 12, I got to go to New York for the summer to live with my grandparents, along with my little brother, Conan, and cousin Lonny.  We drove from Utah to New York with us kids sitting/rolling around in the back of my grandparent's Nissan truck.  No seats, no seat belts, it did have a shell to protect us from the elements.  When we crossed the boarder from Canada back to the USA, a border guard opened the window hatch and asked our situation.  I replied that we were driving with our grandparents to their home in New York and pointing to the boys said, "He's my brother and he's my cousin."  The guard closed the hatch and we continued on.  Grandpa was the branch president and interviewed me (after talking to my bishop on the phone) for a temple recommend so I could go to the Washington, DC temple with the youth in the stake to do Baptisms for the Dead.  That was my first time going to the temple, visiting Washington, DC and staying at a Marriott Hotel.  I remember going to the Hill Cummorah Pageant (multiple times) that summer and one night complaining to my grandpa about the mosquitoes biting me.  He told me that he grew his arm hairs long so that the mosquitoes would get trapped in the hairs so he could easily kill them before they bit him.

I was so proud of my grandparents when they went on their first mission.  They served in Lima Peru.  I remember that at their missionary farewell, someone asked all of the grandchildren to stand up if they were planning to serve a mission.  I stood up proudly.  I wanted to be like them.  Their second mission was to Costa Rica.  After they returned from that mission (1994), I got to drive across the country with my dad, brothers, Conan and Cortney, Cortney's friend Marty and cousin Lonny to help them put up sheet rock in their home to make it tighter from the New York winters.  Really, I was there to help Grandma cook for these hungry workers.

In 1997, they invited all of their family to come to New York in the summer to celebrate their 50th Wedding anniversary.  They were married on November 5, 1947, but we celebrated a few months early (better weather in July for people sleeping in tents on their property).

The next year they moved to West Point, Utah to be closer to family, as most of their children lived there and in the western US and needed some help with Grandma's Parkinson's disease care.

Grandpa came to visit me in Provo, UT a few days after my daughter, Sabrina, was born in April 1999 with his sister Billie.  He commented that it didn't look like Sabrina had the 'Bateman cowlick'.  After Grandma died in August 1999, Grandpa moved back to New York and married Harriet.

In July 2001, I orchestrated a trip with my in-laws to fly to New York to see the city (and Auntie Lulu and Uncle Tony), drive to Kirtland, OH, Niagara Falls, and Palmyra to see the sights of the Restoration of the Gospel.  We got to spend some time with Grandpa and Harriet - at the Palmyra Temple, at their home and on a tour of the Johnston home near Mendon, NY where Brigham Young first heard the gospel preached.

After a few years, Grandpa and Harriet moved to West Point, UT to again be closer to family.  He turned 80 on May 9, 2006 and had a big party to celebrate on May 13.  It was at this party that I learned that my grandpa had graduated from Beauty School.  I flew from Boise to Salt Lake with my son Roderic, so I could sing with my sisters "You Are My Sunshine" and "Side By Side".  Ryan and Sabrina drove down after her soccer game that day.  The next day Kierra Ludlow was blessed in church and Grandpa was caught taking a nap in a fairly comfortable office desk chair.

In April of 2011, we celebrated Grandpa's 85th birthday at the Senior Center in West Point.  My Aunt Luella orchestrated the whole thing.  This picture contains only a fraction of his posterity.

I've got a great story that he told me in 2009 on my blog here.  And then there was the time that he had to contact the records department of the church to let them know he wasn't dead yet so he could continue to log into lds.org and do family history research.  And he loved to go out to his garden with salt shaker in hand to eat fresh cucumber.