Introduction

Childhood

Courtship and Marriage

Education

Teaching

Touring

Scouting

Theater

History and Politics

Farming

Church Service

Mission President

Temple Presidency

Ashcroft Observatory

Family

Funeral

Photo Gallery

FAMILY

“Our children take their flight into the future with our thrust and with our aim.  And even as we anxiously watch that arrow in flight and know all the evils that can deflect its course after it has left our hand, nevertheless we take courage in remembering that the most important mortal factor in determining that arrow’s destination will be the stability, strength, and unwavering certainty of the holder of the bow.”

― Jeffrey R. Holland

Both Theron and Lucretia were raised in strong close-knit families.  They were taught the gospel and to be faithful.  They were also taught the value of hard work and how to take care of what you have.  As a result, we were raised in a strong LDS home, with similar values.

There were seven children born to Theron Milton and Lucretia Parsons Ashcroft.  Beatrice Anne was born September 25, 1930 in Logan, Utah.  Charles Robert was born January 2, 1933, also in Logan.  Peggy Marie was born April 1, 1935 at home in Hyde Park, Utah, and Don Parsons was born September 7, 1936 in Brigham City, Utah.  After the family moved to Cedar City, Kay was born October 10, 1939, Judith on April 12, 1943, and Susan on September 18, 1945.

Lucretia and Theron did everything they could to provide us with a loving and nurturing environment and to provide experiences that would make our lives interesting and successful. We had Family Home Evenings long before the Church announced the FHE Program. We played games, popped corn and made honey candy. We went on picnics and hiked in Zion, the red rocks of St. George, Navajo Lake, and the hills around Cedar City. We hunted for arrowheads in Kanab. Pinenuts west of Milford, and interesting rocks and fossils wherever we went. Daddy would bring home the College’s telescope and the neighborhood would gather to view the craters of the moon, the rings around Saturn, and the moons of Jupiter. He taught us how to use a slide rule, the latest and greatest of our day, took us skiing and ice skating.

The following letter was sent to Theron and Lucretia from a neighbor who grew up across the street .  It offers a glimpse of the Ashcroft home from the outside.

Christmas 1978

Dear Theron and Lucretia,

. . .My childhood memories associated with the Ashcroft family are the most important and cherished ones I have.  The ice-skating excursions that Theron made sure all we neighborhood kids were included in, when really all he needed to worry about was his own family – the Monopoly and Canasta games, the creamy cheese spread on Ritz Crackers at Christmas time, the fireplace flickering through the front room window and the family that was there enjoying one another.  Watching everyone in their work clothes leaving for the family garden farm early in the morning, the fishpond to the South side of the house, the lazy summer afternoons upstairs in the girls’ rooms talking and dreaming of our lives in the future, even Anne’s beautiful white graduation dress that Lucretia made with hand-made pink and green flowers along the skirt.  Also, I can’t forget Theron’s willingness to always help any of us with our school math assignments and his happy story-telling conversations.”

Charles was born with a heart defect.  It didn’t take mother long to know that something was wrong.  The doctors surmised that the opening in the heart that normally closes at birth had remained open.  This meant that Charles’ blood was bypassing the lungs and not being oxygenated.  He was very frail, and the doctors told mother that he would most likely live only a few months.  Mother and Dad did such a wonderful job of caring for Charles that he lived to be fifteen years old.  His strength was limited, and he was forced to live a quiet life.  He attended elementary school, but when he got to Junior High Mother and Dad worried that the rough and tumble world of teenagers could be a problem for Charles, and so he stayed at home.  He collected stamps and enjoyed reading and making model airplanes.

As cardiovascular research progressed, doctors learned how to open up the heart and close the patent arterio ductus.  Dr. Broadbent learned that they were doing this surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.  He encouraged Theron and Lucretia to take Charles there.  When they contacted Mayo Clinic they learned that a Dr. Rumel had trained at the Mayo and was performing this same surgery in Salt Lake.  They immediately scheduled Charles for surgery, which took place on February 6, 1948.  When they opened Charles they discovered that his problems were so much more extensive than they had thought.  They did not know where to even begin, so they stitched him up and he passed away without even coming out of the anesthesia.  His funeral took place on February 9, 1948.

 Charles brought such a sweet spirit to their home.   His older siblings were privileged to serve him.  Anne pedaled him back and forth to school on the back of a large tricycle.  To Susan and Judy (who were still pre-schoolers)  he was their constant friend.  He spent most of his time lying on the living room sofa reading to them or watching the two of them play.

 Anne wrote the following letter to the rest of the family in April of 1996.  She tells of going to the funeral for Hilda Parry where one of the Parry boys talked to her of his memories of Charles.

 “He said how well he remembered carrying Charles up the stairs at the school.  I have thought of this before and even used it in a talk, saying how that experience blessed Charles but how I think it also blessed those boys who were privileged to carry him up the stairs and think about his welfare, etc.    This just reinforced my feelings.  Today there would be 14 advocates for equal rights making sure that an elevator was installed, an aide was available, etc.  In 40 years there will not be 10, 12, or 20 boys who remember how they carried someone in their arm-chairs up the stairs to school, out to recess, back in again, out at noon, back in again, out to recess, back in again and out after school.  They won’t remember how they had to change their plans for the end of school outing so it would be more accessible for Charles.  They won’t have had that opportunity to grow, to stretch, to render service, to become more caring, to think of others – all because all of this will be taken care of by paid social workers who will see that their rights are protected.  By the same token, and or the same reasons, our lives have each been blessed because there was no one watching out for Charles except his family, his neighbors, his friends and those who loved him – who did it without pay and without undue praise.  We are richer because of this opportunity, and hearing Jim express that reminded me once again of how very blessed I am because of my family.”

The school principal, Oscar J. Hulet, spoke at Charles’ funeral.  Among other wonderful things, he said:

“I remember Charles in our school.  It makes me tremble to think of the graciousness of that boy.  He had the ability to make friends and draw people around him.  He had never been spoiled.  He was gracious in accepting the things and services that his friends vied to bestow upon him.  I have seen literally hundreds of times Charles riding ‘piggy back’ on the backs of his friends, accepting it graciously and helping his friends as they helped him.  I have had the rare privilege to carry him and enjoy him as he attended our school, a privilege for which I am indeed thankful.”

Charles’ death most certainly had a profound effect on Theron and Lucretia. Thank goodness for their many friends’ loving support. Theron had always wanted to take his family on an extended vacation, but Charles’ illness had made that impossible. But in 1951, he bought a new Chevy sedan and made plans to take the family to Hood River Oregon for the summer. Lucretia’s brother, Harold Parsons, was employed by Webster Orchards, and through him the family was employed to spend the summer picking fruit. They were housed in a small two-bedroom home in the middle of an orchard near Hood River. The three little girls entertained themselves each day while Theron and Lucretia, Anne, Marie, and Don moved from assignment to assignment.

Their first job was thinning apples. They were to pick off all the apples except one every eight inches. When the cherries ripened they picked them. The pay ranged from 5 cents to 8 cents per pound. They were such dependable pickers that they often asked them to do sparse trees for a better rate of pay. For some time, Anne and Marie worked in a packing house. During the off-season, Don and dad dug ditch for the sprinkling system. Then for a time, the family drove to Portland every morning to pick green beans. There were many black people there, and their lullabies certainly made the work more enjoyable

During a time when there were no workable crops the Ashcrofts and Parsons took a trip to Banff, Lake Louise, Bremerton, and Seattle, arriving back in Hood River in time to help with the pear harvest.  They picked pears until the day before school started, then started home.  They had pulled a two-wheeled trailer behind them (which served as an outdoor bedroom for Don), which they filled with fruit they had canned, salmon, and school clothes for the winter.  They had hoped to pay for their summer expenses.  As it turned out, they ended up paying all expenses AND saving $2,000 from their summer earnings.  Anne and Lucretia kept a daily journal of their adventures.

One locally historic event occurred while the Ashcrofts were in Hood River.  Newly sustained Prophet, David O. McKay, came to dedicate the new Hood River chapel.  In his talk, President McKay said he felt that if Brigham Young had taken the northern route and had entered the beautiful Columbia Valley where Hood River is located he would have said, “THIS is the place.”

Theron really did love to travel, and through the years he and Lucretia took their family on other wonderful trips.  They all went to Hawaii together during the Christmas holidays in 1972.  Two years later they all went to Mexico for another glorious vacation, including a trip to Yucatan to explore the Book of Mormon lands.

In 1966 Theron, Lucretia, and Susan flew to Germany to pick Judy up from her mission. They purchased a Volkswagen from the VW Factory in Frankfurt which they used to tour Europe for four weeks, then loaded it aboard the Queen Mary for their five day cruise home on the beautiful luxury cruiser.

In the 1970’s, Lucretia’s sister (Helen and Darley Allen)  were serving an agricultural mission in Tonga.  Theron and Lucretia, Lucretia’s sister (Bea and Ira Markham), and two of her brothers (Harold and Ina Parsons, and LaVell and Leona Parsons) traveled to Tonga to visit Helen and Darley.  Theron, with his interest in farming, would have loved this trip.

Family was important to Theron, including his extended family.  During their early married years Theron and Lucretia received considerable financial and moral support from their extended families.  Throughout the rest of his life, Theron was instrumental in gathering both his and Lucretia’s extended family for gatherings and family reunions and doing all that he could to keep the family connected.

In the summer of 1979, Theron and Lucretia’s family planned a wonderful Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary celebration.  All the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren were there.

As part of the celebration, a bus was chartered and everyone was taken to see all of the places in the area that had been significant to Theron and Lucretia.

In the evening, their many friends and associates attended an open house in their honor.

In 1978, Theron and Lucretia’s son, Don Parsons Ashcroft, was killed in a Pacific Southwest Airline crash over San Diego.  Kay passed away in 2007 of an undetermined illness while serving a mission with her husband in Madagascar, and Anne passed away in 2016 following a stroke.  The six of them are enjoying a loving and eternal reunion there.

Theron was never caught up in the expensive things of the world.  He did value opportunity and experience.  Not surprisingly, at the end of their lives, Theron and Lucretia put their remaining assets into a fund to help their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren serve missions. The trust pays for one-third of the cost of the mission, leaving the parents and the missionary to take care of the other two-thirds. To date, 44 individuals have been blessed by Theron and Lucretia’s generosity.

Con Hatch, a longtime friend and colleague of Theron’s said of him:

“I think perhaps the greatest thing in Theron’s life is his family.  As skillful as he might have been in planting and nurturing and growing vegetables and other crops, his greatest asset, perhaps, was his ability and his wisdom in the seedbed of his home, nurturing his children and seeing the beautiful souls that emerged and blossomed and bloomed.  I think foremost he was an example of a patriarch in his family.  He well exemplifies ‘No success can compensate for failure in the home,’ and ‘The greatest work you will ever do will be within the walls of your own home.’  Lucretia, I feel you are a great  “together family”, a forever family, because of the way you have lived and supported one another, and done things together, and taken care of the things that needed to be done.  As I have observed your family I have often thought about President McKay’s saying, ‘I see heaven as an extension of the ideal family.’  I believe Theron has been welcomed home by a loving Father who has said, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant.  Thou hast been faithful over a few things.  I will make you ruler over many things.’”

Family Memories

My earliest memories of daddy include playing “Skin the Cat.”  I would face daddy, and holding his hands, I would walk up his body until I got to his shoulders and then flip my feet over my head and let my feet drop to the floor.  It was a little bit of a gymnastic trick and I loved to do it over and over when daddy came home.  I also loved our family nights when we would play Donkey.  Spoons were laid in a circle, the bowls in the center.  There was one spoon less than the number of players.  A deck of cards was dealt out.  The object was to collect all four of a kind, and we would pass cards to our neighbor one at a time until someone had four of something.  They would take a spoon from the circle, then everyone tried to get one of the remaining spoons.  The person without a spoon got a “D”.  As soon as someone had Donkey, the game was over.  How I loved those nights together in front of the fireplace playing games.

“Because daddy was so busy and very funny or all business as the situation dictated, I was not always aware of his spiritual side.   But I am grateful for a few experiences I had with daddy that revealed to me the very close connection he had with heaven.

“When I was a missionary in Germany our mission president was a wonderful man from Price, Utah who had served as stake president for 26 years.  He was a very spiritually in-tune man, and would often have dreams of a missionary sinking in mud or in some other danger, which was a revelation to President Broadbent that that missionary was struggling in some way.   He would wake Sister Broadbent and say, “Get dressed, mama, we’re going to rescue one of our missionaries.”

“When Randy and I got married, mother and daddy were already in Ireland, and for the next three years we did not have the blessing of being in regular communication.  During our first year of marriage we were students at BYU.  That year they announced the construction of the Provo Temple, and as was the custom at that time, Randy and I were given a temple assessment.  It sort of blew our socks off.  It was a significant amount of money.  We were both full-time students and both worked campus jobs just to pay for rent and food.  Over the next few weeks we wondered over and over how we would ever find that kind of money.

“One day we received a letter from daddy, hand-written on Irish Mission letterhead.  It said simply, ‘Judy, talk about your mission president having dreams.  Last night I dreamed that you came to borrow money.  You didn’t say how much you needed.  I’m in a hurry.  Will write more later.  Dad.’  Enclosed was a check for the very amount of our temple assessment.

“Not long ago, I read that when Barack Obama proposed to Michelle, her father asked her brother to go play basketball with Barack and report back.   Obama acquitted himself well, according to the brother, and was thus admitted to the family without reservation.

When I went to Cedar City to visit Kay some months before our wedding, Theron asked me to go help him repair a fence up on the mountain property.  It was one of those aspen log fences and had fallen down in several places.  I was clueless as to how those fences hold together, but I followed directions and we finished the job.  Theron didn’t make small talk, but he was kind and patient.  On the ride back into town, he somehow conveyed to me that he was pleased (not excessively overjoyed, maybe) to have me joining the family.  Perhaps that was my basketball game.”