(Eulogy given by Shirlene Tolman at his funeral on 27 September 1980).
Father loved each one of you and I know he would want me to express his appreciation for your friendship and for your kindness to his family at this time.
The program today was suggested by Father many months ago, and we wish to thank the bishopric and the Relief Society for their assistance at this time, JoAnn Curtis, Norma Jean Jensen, and Carol Tolman, our cousins, for their contributions in music. The closing hymn will be sung by Father’s niece and nephew, children of his eldest sister. He has enjoyed their lovely voices at our family reunions. The hymn they will sing was sung at Father’s missionary farewell over fifty years ago.
William Odell Tolman was born to William Alvin Tolman and Hattie Naomi Tolman on July 11, 1910, at Island, Cassia, Idaho. The pioneering spirit of parents and grandparents was passed on to Father and his brothers and sisters. They have great faith and they have endured adversities. They are optimists and are willing to try new frontiers and increase their talents.
Father has five brothers and five sisters, and he has spoken often of his love for them and his gratitude for the experiences they have enjoyed together. His five brothers are here today and three of his sisters, and we are sure Father is enjoying the company of his parents and his two sisters and Janice and others on this day.
This family influence and the small community in which he lived were the schoolrooms for his later life of service.
In his 17th year the stake president came to his parents and asked if they would send him on a mission. They had no funds at the time, but they had something more important—great faith. Father has mentioned many times of the twenty-four miracles that occurred while he was in the British Isles which enabled him to have the money sent to him. Following his mission he attended college and subsequently was involved in several vocations including operating a grocery/meat market and owning a car dealership.
During those college years he courted his sweetheart Opal Adams and they were married April 27, 1934, and in June went to the Logan Temple for their sealing. To them have been born three sons and four daughters. Father and Mother each brought great strengths and talents to this union and have been a complement and support to one another through forty-six years of marriage. They have built for us a home of peace and security where the family enjoys
meeting together often—a place of laughter and singing and associations dearer than any other triumphs or accomplishments. Over the years twenty-seven lovely grandchildren have been added to the family.
Father, as you know, has always enjoyed young people. He concluded his business in Idaho Falls in 1955, and we moved to Utah where he could attend the Brigham Young University and complete his degree. He began teaching seminary in Provo. From there he was asked to take the position at the Bountiful High School Seminary and he loved it and he always called it a paid vacation. When the Woods Cross High School was built he was asked to be the principal there and from that position he retired in 1975 after enjoying nineteen years teaching young people.
He has filled many positions in the Church. He was a home teacher and scoutmaster. He filled many positions as a teacher and leader in the auxiliaries and in the priesthood. He was a bishop’s counselor twice and bishop of the Pocatello 11th Ward when he was thirty-four. He has been a high councilman and has been on various stake genealogy committees. He served on the Church Priesthood Genealogy Committee for ten years.
He has been affiliated with the Sons of the Utah Pioneers.
But scouting has been one of the great joys in his life beginning prior to his going into the mission field. He received the Silver Beaver award in 1948, and he has told us of the opportunity that he had as a young missionary in the British Isles of meeting the Chief Scouter of the World—Robert Baden Powell.
Father gave his life in service to his family, and I include all his relatives, to young people and to the great genealogical program of the Church. He wore out his life in well-doing. He was kind and considerate of others and a gentle man. He was loved by people all over the world and it was interesting to us as he traveled the Church in his assignment with the Genealogical Priesthood Committee that every time he came home he would tell us of a relative he had met, or a former student or business associate and he never missed a week in meeting someone he knew.
We love him dearly and it has been hard for us to see his great heart weaken day by day over the last few months and years until he slipped quietly away from us on September 25, 1980, to attend a very special family reunion.
We honor him this day and pray that we may keep ever present in our minds his noble example of husband and father, son, brother and friend, so that someday we may have the rich experience of his association again.
I pray the Lord will be with each one of us and I say this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
(Contributed by the Thomas Tolman Family Organization. Excerpt from William Odell Tolman: Patriarch, Genealogist, Teacher compiled by Loraine Tolman Pace, First Edition, 2009, page 519-520).
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