In Memoriam – Donald Richard Stanford

(This is adapted from the Life Sketch presented at his Memorial Service at Ferntree Gully Seventh-day Adventist Church on Thursday 31st March 2022, with some extra recollections of my own and my brother Callum added.)

Donald Richard (Pa Don) Stanford: Born 1st June 1935. Died 26th March 2022.

Donald Richard Stanford was born in Subiaco, Western Australia to the proud parents Richard Joseph Stanford from London, and Elsie Stanford from Lancashire on the 1st June 1935. Richard and Elsie had another child that sadly died before Don was born and so he remained an only child. Not much is known about his childhood as he did not talk much about it, however we do know that he attended Perth Boys High School and was baptized as a Seventh Day Adventist at the age of 15. Following this, Don attended Carmel College in Western Australia before moving to Victoria. Even at a young age he had a strong work ethic with part-time after-school jobs involving carting eggs and selling them, and gardening.

After he moved to Victoria with his family he started working for Sanitarium Health Foods in Windsor. Callum recalls Dad telling him that while he worked there, freight was shipped in freight trains to an from the company – suburban freight trains being something that has long since ceased. He also attended night school to obtain his accounting diploma at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) and then followed on with his cost accounting credentials later. He then moved to Moonah, Tasmania and continued his employment with Sanitarium Health Foods. His love of the outdoors is apparent in some of the old photos we found of his trips around Tasmania.

In 1963 he met Elayne Glew at an Eastern fellowship committee meeting and proceeded to court her. He invited Elayne to dinner one evening and asked her, “how many potatoes would you like?” To which she replied calmly “oh just one thanks”. He then asked her “are you sure that will be enough?” “Oh yes” she replied, fully expecting to receive a spread of cooked vegetables. Then out came her tea – one solitary cooked potato on a plate. That one potato must have been rather special, as the relationship continued and on the 22nd August 1965 Don and Elayne got married at the Croydon Seventh Day Adventist Church. Don and Elayne then went on to have four children, with the first, James born in 1967, followed by Wendy in 1969, Malcum in 1971 and Callum in 1983.

Dad loved the outdoors, regularly going on long walks and hikes in the Sherbrooke Forest near our family home in Selby, and elsewhere, until injuries sustained as a result of being hit by a car made this increasingly difficult. Even after being injured he tried to maintain his independence by going for walks when he could, sometimes leaving us wondering if he was lost or in trouble somewhere, until finally he arrived home again. He also loved ‘rustic’ camping (there was no glamping in Dad’s camping). As children we all have differing memories of these walks and camping trips. I remember them fondly and recognise the profound effect those walks, hikes and camping trips have had on me as I still enjoy those activities and other outdoor activities immensely much to the chagrin of my beloved wife. I remember walking with Dad along various tracks in Sherbrooke Forest on a Sabbath afternoon, and beside the Puffing Billy Railway tracks as far as Menzies Creek or beyond before turning around and heading back home. Wendy’s memories of walking with Dad are not so fond and we won’t talk about the leaches in Walhalla or the hike up the short but steep track to the cricket ground there. Malcum’s memories of those walks are a mixture of fond and not so fond memories. On one multiple day Pathfinder (something similar to Scouts) hike, Dad had an ailment (I can’t remember what) and he believed that eating lots of prunes would fix the problem. So his diet over that hike included a large amount of prunes. I can’t remember whether it fixed the ailment, but it did mean that every now and then he would have to drop his pack beside the trail and dart off into the bush to relieve himself while the rest of us waited patiently for his return. There were many Pathfinder hikes we undertook over the years, also learning such things as knots, orienteering and star gazing. Even when he was no longer able to walk any distance, when he visited us Dad and I would spend a day or so going on long drives to far away places of interest. We didn’t always say much on those drives, but in retrospect it has become obvious that he was still able to experience the outdoors through those drives even though he could not walk well, and that he seemed to gain more than a little pleasure from the things he saw on those drives.

He loved working in his garden. Don’s veggie garden was amazing and with over 2 acres of land we were always spoilt with a buffet of delicious vegetables, and fruit from his fruit trees. We all agreed his corn on the cob was the best!

Dad also had a keen interest in trains, which Callum and I have ‘inherited’. Dad and I used to joke that our interest in trains was in our genes. I remember in the 1970s, while I was still young, Dad and I going to the Model Dockyard shop in Swanston Street in Melbourne to buy the engines, rollingstock and track for a model railway we planned to built. Dad converted all the wheels on the rollingstock to metal wheels, and we set up an approximately 7×3 feet model railway on a pine frame with masonite baseboard. Unfortunately we used sand paper to clean the tracks, and the track we used only had a fairly thin metal strip on top to conduct the electricity so the track quickly became useless as it wouldn’t conduct electricity. This seemed to discourage Dad from going any further with building a model railway, but the die was cast and I was still interested so I purchased my first model railway set with money I had saved and mum and I built another model railway with more scenery but less track than the one Dad and I started to build. For a number of years after I married, when I had bigger model railways that could be operated by more than one person, Dad would visit us for a week or so at a time and we made a point of ‘playing trains’ (as my wife calls it) together at least once during each visit. It was easy to see that dad gained great pleasure from this, and I would sometimes watch with some amusement as he tried to uncouple cars ‘the right way’. Callum recalled dad telling him about a train journey between Perth and Melbourne that dad undertook, and that dad remembered all the ‘break of gauge’ places where he had to change trains due to the next train on the journey being a different gauge and that the journey between Adelaide and Melbourne was on The Overland, which still runs today albeit in a different format. In the 1950s, the most likely time dad would have made that journey, Australia’s transcontinental railway was really a collection of different railways. Western Australia had adopted the 3′ 6″ gauge, South Australia had a mixture of 5′ 3″ and 3′ 6″ gauge, and Victoria was mainly 5′ 3″. To exarcebate the gauge problem even further the Commonwealth Railways, which linked the Western Australian railway system to South Australia’s was in 4′ 8.5″ (standard) gauge. Some years after dad made that journey, the line was gauge standardised between Sydney and Perth, and today the mainline between Melbourne and Port Augusta is also standardised. But despite the many changes of gauge, travelling by train between Western Australia and Victoria would still have been the most logical way to travel across Australia back then as a motor vehicle journey across the Nullabor plain would not have been anywhere as ‘civilised’ as it is today. It is possible the family home in Selby that was purchased approximately a year or two after I was born was purchased partly because it has the narrow gauge Puffing Billy railway running along it’s lower boundary! Dad also had some slides of the Zeehan to Strachan railway in Tasmania, probably shot during his time living there.

One of the fondest holidays of Wendy, Malcum and myself was a beach trip to Seaspray near the Ninety Mile beach in eastern Victoria, and one of the funniest was a trip to Mt Gambier in South Australia. Dad didn’t follow any fashion trends but rather made his own, and some were very creative. Dad had a yellow terry toweling bucket hat that he wore everywhere which he complimented with brown plastic sandals, socks and shorts. As kids we thought we would play a trick so that he couldn’t wear the hat, and while on our trip to Mt Gambier, we put a copious amount of talcum powder inside his hat, so that when he put it on, it would be too much of a disaster and he’d have to take it off and put it out to wash first, hence not wear it. Of course, nobody had accounted for his stubbornness, nor his propensity to do things his way, on his own terms, and he proudly kept the hat on his head, talcum powder and all and off we went through the main street in town. I think he might have had the last laugh there.

Dad was an avid chess player, however if you were prepared to take him on you had to allow many hours as he did not play with a timer, and was known to take up to an hour for just one move. Whether this was a tactic to wear down his opponents we’re not sure! Wendy only managed to beat him once, and you could take any win against him with pride as you knew you had truly earned it – he just wasn’t one to make a mistake let alone allow you to win. We were definitely playing for sheep stations when playing chess with Dad!

Dad gave generously of his spare time to the church and over the years, filled many roles at Cockatoo and Ferntree Gully Adventist Churches from Elder, Deacon, Pathfinder assistant, Pathfinder director, Treasurer, Sabbath School Teacher and close to 30 years in the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA). As recognition of his work for ADRA Ferntree Gully, he received a “Quiet Achiever Award”, and also a “Service and Excellence Award” after 25 years of service. He worked tirelessly for charities both within the Seventh Day Adventist church as well as other organisations. I remember many times going walking with dad on the ADRA Appeal around Selby and Menzies Creek, and one of the most striking memories of those times is the way Dad went about collecting money. It seemed that he knew everyone in the area where he collected and the friendly conversation he had with the people seemed such an integral part of the collecting process. Sometimes we would spend around half an hour at one house and the conversational interaction seemed just as important to Dad (or maybe more so) as the actual collecting of donations. He spent many weekends every year collecting for the Salvation Army Red Shield Appeal and only stopped when his body physically wouldn’t comply anymore. He was a Rotary member for 26 years holding roles as club treasurer, Club Foundation chair, Club Executive Secretary and Club President, and he was awarded a Paul Harris Fellow award in 2005.

Dad had a fabulous memory and maintained his sharp mind right up to the end and had possibly the best work ethic of anyone I have ever known. More than once in his life he took a job that was well below his qualifications and pay grade, sometimes working at a flower nursery or fruit orchards in order to provide for his family as best he could during hard financial times. Later in life, after most of us had left home, he ran his own business as a tax agent / bookkeeper / accountant for various clients. He was still an accredited tax agent at the age of 86 and had only just completed another certificate course in February 2022 which was not long before he died. In previous hospital visits he always took his laptop and work with him, or had Elayne bring it in for him, so he could continue working. When he was admitted to hospital the day before he died the nurse was trying to canulate him and he told her, “No, you can’t do that, I’ve got work to do”. This epitomizes his work ethic, and the dedication with which he tackled all tasks throughout his life. He always gave his best effort regardless of the task at hand.

It was virtually impossible to offend Dad, and if you made him the butt of a string of jokes, he would just sit there laughing through a gappy smile with everyone else present. As kids, we used to play jokes on dad quite regularly, and while there may have sometimes been an initial shout of annoyance from dad (particularly when it involved a certain stick and a small outdoor structure), the humor of the situation soon became apparent.

Dad had the ability to think outside the box, and this was probably more evident in his study of the Bible than with anything else. He was a regular sabbath school teacher and attendees would always be left thinking about the discussion long after the church doors had closed for the day. We would sometimes visit other churches as children, and he would often leave the sabbath school leader on duty that day amazed at both his processing and presentation of scripture. It was quite common for him to ask questions which no one could answer (including himself). Callum remembers on one occasion, we travelled to another church in Metropolitan Melbourne, and Callum recalls the teacher that Sabbath asking what seemed a fairly innocent question, then when Don began to speak, at first this particular teacher looked rather stunned, but before long he looked a bit terrified. Dad’s understanding of the Bible and depth of study has spurred Callum and myself to dig deeper into the Bible, even to the point of learning the original biblical languages. Since the start of the COVID pandemic (2020), Dad, Mum, Callum and myself had the opportunity to meet on Zoom each Sabbath and spend a pleasant hour or so studying the Bible together. In retrospect, this was an unexpected but very welcome benefit of the COVID pandemic for us which might not have happened otherwise. Even the Sabbath before he died, his keen mind and grasp of Scripture was apparent, him giving a very succinct and obviously well thought out and Biblically based summary of the Judgement. Those Sabbath studies on Zoom gave us an opportunity to enjoy dad’s and each other’s company without the need to travel, and dad seemed to light up when we all logged into Zoom.

Dad was normally a man of few words, more than a little stubborn, he was a humble, conscientious and stoic man with a great work ethic. He was a man of even fewer words if anyone tried to engage him in a conversation about someone else who was not present to defend themselves. He once told me “believe none of what you hear, and only believe half of what you see”, and he lived by this saying. As younger people this phrase was difficult for us to understand, but now we can see there is a lot of wisdom in this. I have never known him to speak ill of anybody, even in the relative safety of the family home. Don understood that he was strongest when fully surrendered and humbled to the Almighty, and he would spend up to an hour praying on his knees by his bed, or in the lounge room before the rest of us started our day. It was only when his knees lost their strength that this had to change, and he improvised. He did however hold firmly to this faith for as long as he lived. He was by no means perfect (who is), but believed in the power of a perfect saviour. I am sure he would have more than once understood and agreed with John Newton who said “I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior”.

After the previously mentioned accident when he was hit by a car, he was never quite the same physically. He was never what I would call a muscular man but it was obvious that his body was used to some pretty hard physical activity before the accident. Being a very independent and physically active man before the accident I suspect the injuries sustained as a result made life very difficult for him at times, and more than once the frustration was apparent when he was unable to do something for himself. But I don’t think I ever heard him complain about his injuries. It was some 20 years after the accident that he finally gave in and got a hip replacement. In retrospect, if he had got the hip replacement many years earlier than he did he may have been able to continue being more active than he otherwise would have following the accident.

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In his later years, each of his children married, some of them providing him with various grandchildren. He seemed to gain great pleasure from giving those grandchildren gifts, and loved interacting with them. Often after some cross-generational interaction he would then promptly fall asleep in his chair for a nap. This falling asleep became more common the older and less active he got, and while asleep like that he would often have his mouth wide open – we used to call this ‘catching flies’.

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In 2018, Dad was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer. Unfortunately stage 4 cancer could not be cured with any amount of chemotherapy. Towards the end of his life he was taking what he called ‘nuclear pills’ and we would sometimes joke about him glowing in the dark to which Dad chuckled. Dad fought bravely all the way, and on the 26th of March 2022 while in hospital due to collapsing the day before, he passed away peacefully in his sleep with his wife, Elayne, son Malcum and granddaughter Olivia by his side, and his church pastor, Pr Paul Kotanko also by his side encouraging him from the scriptures. From what I know about dad, this is where he would have gone for encouragement if he was able. Dad now rests in peace, while we look forward to meeting him again on the day of the Glorious Appearing, when the last enemy, death, shall be defeated forever and there will be no more sorrow, pain or suffering.