Arthur Carl Hope

My grandfather passed away two weeks ago and so my family drove to Utah for his funeral. I love my Grandpa, but I never felt like I really took the time to get to know him. He didn't like little kids and my mom tells me he was a grumpy person. I also have lots of family in Utah including my newest Nephew, Peter. So this was not a singularly sad occasion, I looked forward to family and his eulogy just so I could hear more about his life.
Aurthur Carl Hope served in the Military, served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day saints and was the first in his family to ever go to college. He became a mathematician and worked at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. I joked that he worked on the Manhattan Project and that was why he was so reserved and grumpy. He was a great wood carver and has some of his artwork on display in a museum. And his obituary states that he loved dogs. He'd had four that I knew of.
The real measure of my grandfather is his legacy. And my real excitement for this trip was my Aunts and Uncles, and cousins. He had five children and 37 grandchildren. I have an Aunt and Uncle who served a mission in Mongolia, and one set who served in Singapore. I have an Uncle who wrote a book called 'Ground Pounders' (good read!) . My cousins are spread from the East Coast to the West and we don't see each other often, but we all get along and my cousins are fun, interesting, down to Earth and down right hilarious. Half seem to be Engineers- part of Grandpa's Legacy, maybe? We hadn't seen each other together in almost twenty years and still were genuinely happy to be together and feel a connection. After the luncheon, each of us stood up and took turns telling a memory. I heard bits and pieces of my grandpa in the memories we had all collected from him and was able to feel like I knew him better. What a good man, what a great family.
We are the ripples of his life that continue on and get greater and greater as we go.