What was most important to my father?

Dad's testimony was most important to him as was his family.  He would tell me how he would pray to see an angel when he was a boy so that he could tell his father, Glynn S. Bennion, that the gospel was true.  Grandpa fell out of church activity after the Great Depression set in.  Dad was very religious, which he learned from his mother, Lucile.  He wanted deeply to bring his father back to church full activity.
   Dad wanted to have a large family.  He and my mother discussed this before their marriage in the temple.  Mother and Dad had as many children as they could.  Mom stayed home full time with the little ones, she always had three in diapers up until the last couple of children.  Dad worked extra, taking on correspondence students to increase his income.
   When I was in my early teens we meet with Bishop Max Randquist for tithing settlement.  Bishop asked Dad if there was anything he would like to say to the family.  Dad encouraged us to have as many children as we could, to always pay our tithing, and everything would work out OK.  When my older sister, Mary was born (just a year older than me) Dad was teaching at Lincoln High School.  His colleagues told him that he couldn't afford more children.  Mother's doctor told her that she shouldn't have more children.  (Mary was under weight and spent a while in an incubator at the hospital before she was allowed to go home.)  Mom changed doctors, and Dad got a new job teaching at BY High.  And I was born next.  Nice of Mom and Dad not to quit.
   Dad wanted his kids to be good examples.  He told us family history stories which made me feel that much was expected of me because of my heritage.  We always went to funerals and family reunions.  The Bennion and Cannon family reunions in those days where huge affairs held in church meeting houses the size of stake centers.  There were meeting to sit through and food to eat--funeral potatoes, green jello, etc.  The Mormon standard.  At one of these Cannon Family reunions I heard an 80 year old woman tell of a reunion she attended when she was 8 years old and George Q Cannon was 80.  It was just before his birthday and he called all of the little children around him and bore testimony to them that the Savior had appeared to him in the Salt Lake Temple.
   The Bennion Family reunions always included a huge tug-o-war between the descendants of John Bennion and Sam Bennion.  John always won.  The Bennions were always a little better at having fun than the Cannons, who were mostly about the history and the traditions.
   To feed the family Dad was an incredible gardener, fisherman, and hunter.  We ate a lot of mountain trout, venison, and garden veggies.
   Dad loved his father very much and didn't understand why this was not an automatic thing for me.  I love my dad, but it took years to overcome the rift that formed in my teenage years.  I think this must have been hard for him, but he always doted on the boys who were the most at risk of rebellion. So, he showered his attentions on Joe and Howard.  Sam and I had to peck and scratch for the bits and crumbs that fell from that table.  Sam never seemed to resent this.  I did.  Sam was the loyal puppy that Dad wanted me to be.
   Dad loved the scriptures.  We read them together as a family.  He preached from them.  He served as a bishop two or three times.  He was the first bishop of the Orem 10th Ward when Mom and Dad were young, poor, with eight children under the age of 12.  Later he served as bishop of the Granby Ward.
   Dad used to tell me that he liked "Cowboy music," whatever that is.  But he quit it because he didn't want his children growing up under its influence.  Instead he played classical music in the home.  I fell in with the music of my time, but developed my enjoyment of classical music because of the records Dad bought.
   Dad loved to play the organ.  He had one as far back as I can remember.  When one wore out, he bought a new one.  Dad would sit and play in the few free moments he had.  His second organ had a built in tape recorder.  Dad used it to create his own "radio dramas."  The best of these was a recording he made of the Legend of Boggy Creek, a story of Sasquatch.  I may have a copy of the original tape somewhere in my piles of stuff that Mom wants to throw out.  (Don't let her.)
   Dad loved mint chocolate chip ice cream.  He still had a bit of girth on him when Joe, Sam, and I dressed his body for his funeral, and I couldn't help thinking how much Irish ice cream, as he used to call it, was in that tummy.  I'm sure Adam, John, and Jake will have similar thoughts when it comes time to dress my over weight carcass.  Haha.
   Dad loved his Indian students.  He taught in BYU's Lamanite program.  He learned a little Navajo and would speak to any and every Indian he met.  He loved their art.  He loved the flutes they made and learned to make them himself.
   He also loved to do missionary work and would talk about the gospel with everyone and anyone.
   Out of all of this, it might be apparent that most important to Dad was the gospel and his family.