Frank Austin Cope 

August 4, 1923 – April  23, 2012 

By Raymond Frank Cope 

A typical Saturday in the Cope home 40 years ago began like this:

Dad would wake Bob and I at about 7 am. “Time to get up.”

“Can’t we sleep in, it’s Saturday?”

“You want to go swimming? We have to get the lawns done first.”

So we would get up. If we didn’t, he would grab your big toe and pull you out of bed. Both Bob and I have left feet that are half an inch longer than the right - I blame Dad. We would mow lawns with a hand reel mower, no wimpy power mower for us. Or we would paint, or clean, or do whatever job needed to be done and then head for the pool.

On Saturday the Scera pool would open an hour earlier than normal and if you got there right as it opened you could have the pool to yourself, to swim laps, play, or try to dunk your father. We learned a lot in that pool. We would come home half-blind from chlorine and half-drowned from being dunked.  I learned to wrestle. I learned full nelsons, half nelsons, cradles, and leg sweeps. Years later as a parent of a special needs child with Down Syndrome and Autism, I put some of those skills to use. I never thought a good leg sweep would become a parenting skill, but when a child is working up a fit in a store and an urgent time out is required, it really helps.

We didn’t just play in the pool, we worked. We would swim laps and work on strokes. He taught us to swim underwater. If you work on the stroke, and learn to glide, really learn to glide and get an efficient stroke, you can swim across the pool in 6 strokes underwater. The boys and Mary would have contests to see who could swim the farthest underwater. We could all do 2 laps without coming up for breath. We learned not just to work hard, but we learned to get really good, you needed to be effective. This is a lesson I use every day at work.

Dad also taught us to golf and play tennis. He taught us to shoot, and bowl badly. We played board games and cards. I learned probability as a child in Monopoly – where to best place the houses based on the probability of an opponent rolling two dice. Mother never played with us after that. Perhaps this is what led me to a degree in mathematics.  

The best memories of my father were not on the golf course or tennis court or even in the pool. They were working with him. I remember roofing our house, painting it, breaking up a patio with sledge hammers. Dad didn’t just work, he had fun working. And when he played he didn’t just play, he worked at it and got better at it. I really had fun working on that patio. It can be very satisfying breaking up concrete. Besides, when I swing a sledge hammer it doesn’t slice. I can’t say that about golf.

Dad had a great work ethic. He worked 3 jobs: Geneva Steel Mill, Army Reserve, and Pharmacy. When he retired at age 62 from Geneva, he had about 2 years of unused sick time. He worked his last shift on a Friday and started full-time as a pharmacist at Allen’s on the next Monday. He worked full time: four 10-12 hour days per week for the next 24 years. He was supposed to retire from Allen’s just shy of 84 years old and it nearly killed him; he had a massive heart attack in church. He recovered quickly from surgery and he worked another 2 years fulltime. I think Dad’s philosophy was “Find something you love and do it till the day you die.” He truly taught “Men are that they might have joy.”

Now if this makes you think Dad was competitive, you’re right. He was very competitive, but he was a good loser. In fact, I think he enjoyed being beaten by his children. He was very proud of our accomplishments. A gracious loser, but a horrible winner, Dad loved to win and loved to tease others. Winning let him combine these 2 loves into 1 act of gloating. I remember him when the Lakers were losing to the Boston Celtics in the NBA championship. My friend John Ramsell, a huge Lakers fan, was living with us for short time. During the day John and I finished the basement, painted the front room, we even dropped an engine into Joanne’s Mustang, but at night we watched the playoffs and Dad and I teased John. I don’t think Dad liked the Celtics; in fact he called them the ugliest team in the NBA. With Larry Bird, Kevin McKale, and Robert Parrish he was probably right, but he loved watching John die a little every time the Lakers lost.

We all got to see this in Dad; I’ve never seen him laugh harder than when I sliced 3 balls in a row off the tee into the sewage disposal plant. It was a small weakness in a great man, and we loved him for it.

Dad was also a funny man. He had a knack for nicknames. It was his gift. His granddaughter, Ally, was telling him once how much she loved seeing him, and thanking him for his visit when he looked past her and his eyes glazed a bit. She wondered if he was getting emotional when he exclaimed, “Tundra!” He was looking at Bob’s truck in the driveway.

Sometimes he had the attention span of a Labrador on acid. “Butterfly”.

Grandchildren where called “Critters” and “Honkers”, giving them a choice, “Are you a critter or a honker?” He called Andrea his “Little Viking”. She replied in the husky little voice she used when annoyed, “I no Viking, you …donut!” He showed up the next day with donuts. Her ultimate rebuttal turned into a tasty snack.

I look out on this audience and see Ally and Andrea and think, “Tundra” and “Little Viking”. I probably always will.

There are worse nicknames. I was married about a year, and Dad and I were talking about Tolkien’s “The Return of the King” and Frodo going home, and Samwise getting married. Dad looked at my lovely little wife, only 5 feet tall, and called her Ray’s “Plump Little Hobbit Wife”. I look at my wife of twenty six years, and yes, I think of her as my “Plump Little Hobbit Wife”. Naomi took it well. She told me she felt part of the family - Frank had pronounced his blessing upon her.

I was at the doctor’s office with Dad as a sophomore in high school, insecure, and overweight. The doctor asked me what I was doing about my weight. Dad interjected, “He eats a lot.” He was right. I still do, and it was a great comment. Now as an adult I am secure in my fatness and I used that same comment on my latest doctor. You should have seen her face. It was hilarious.

Dad was patient in affliction. When I left on my mission, my mother had cancer and was not expected to live until I returned. Letters from home painted a picture of a difficult time. When I came home, Mom’s cancer was in a surprising remission. We all felt we were blessed, but while the cancer was under control, the pain was not. She was miserable, and the medications were not relieving the pain. She was in really bad shape and life was hard. I remember talking to him about at a pool. We had just swum a mile, a daily event for Dad, and were relaxing in the Jacuzzi. I asked him about the relationship at home. He replied, “She needs me, what else can I do?” 

In a few weeks some odd circumstances led Mom to a pain clinic and gave her the motivation to see it through. I would drive her up to Salt Lake and help her with the self-hypnosis to manage the pain. She got off the pain pills, and some other medications. Even though the cancer returned shortly, she was so much better. Their relationship really bloomed those last two years. It was a huge blessing to me to see how the Lord can work miracles in families’ lives if we are patient. In many ways, my thinking on my father and mother and temple marriage matured in that year.

Dad had a simple philosophy in life. He didn’t agonize over things, he would do the best he could with the information he had, and then move forward. He might look back with regret, but he never let it stop him from moving forward. He was quick to learn from mistakes but was not a man to wallow in them.

When I was thinking about marriage with Naomi, I asked for his advice and a father’s blessing. He asked me, “Do you love her?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then marry her.” was his reply.

I started to tell him about all of the concerns about money, school, and other issues and he interrupted me by saying, “Just do the right thing and to hell with the consequences.” It was the best advice I have ever received. I’ve remembered that many times since and tried to live it. It has helped my own family for twenty six years. It is a great motto to live by and it would make an awesome primary song!

President Monson spoke on the Race of Life in last Conference:

“The Apostle Paul likened life to at race. To the Hebrews he urged ‘Let us lay aside … the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.’

“In our zeal, let us not overlook the sage counsel from Ecclesiastes: ‘The race is not to the swift, not the battle to the strong.’ Actually, the prize belongs to him or her who endures to the end.”

Dad was a patient racer; he followed his own advice and did the right thing, and did it well for years. When I became a high priest, I talked with him about home teaching. He said “We got a 100%”. He meant 100% for the year, not the month. Dad went home teaching, and as group secretary, he put a place for reporting home teaching on the roll. If three weeks went by without you doing your home teaching you got a call, and usually went with a member of the high priest group leadership. They did their home teaching. Your bishop’s grandfather was his companion for years. I remember coming down to Orem for family parties to find Dad had gone home teaching. We waited. It was fine. It was Dad.

Twenty-six years ago our mother died. We buried her by a tall Poplar tree. For twenty-six years we’ve looked to that tree to guide us to our mother. Today many of you will go to the wrong place, as that tree is gone. It was hit by lightning and the cemetery removed it.

My father’s life was like that tree. He wasn’t showy, but he set an example. He guided his family by example, and he did it every day. He was quiet about it. He didn’t push or compel. As a youth it would have been easier for me if he had, but he didn’t, and I learned more by deciding for myself what was right and wrong.

When he had his heart attack it was as if lightning had struck. We came together and worked on things, set in order our houses and prepared. We were lucky and we got another five seasons with our father. I’m grateful for those years. I am also grateful for his passing now. This was a man who knew how to live and lived to the end. He was not a man for dying.

He was a very human man; full of flaws and weakness, like the Poplar, but he was also tall and noble, beautiful, unassuming, an example that showed the way. Dad understood the scripture:

25 Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.

26 And the Messiah cometh in the fullness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon,  2Nephi 2: 25-26

Dad had his failings, but he knew joy better than most men. He knew and lived the principal of The Atonement and taught it to us. He didn’t just know the gospel, he quietly lived it. Unlike that Poplar tree, my father has not fallen; he is still there. A weak Poplar is becoming a mighty Oak through faith in Jesus Christ. He is redeemed from The Fall and is now free forever: free from a body that slowed him down and held him back. He is waiting, just a heartbeat away with our mother. I look forward to seeing them again, but am willing to wait and watch things grow. I want to be the kind of man my father was.