Memories of my brother Les
Ivan Lester Federer, Jr.
January 13, 1959 ~ November 9, 1988
I wrote this as we were driving to Cheyenne for Les’s memorial service on November 14, 1988.
As far back as I can remember I have memories of my brother Les. I can remember him sleeping in the crib in my Mom and Dad’s room. We played together all the time, and we rarely fought. We would play outside often. We like to ride horses. We had a few ornery ponies and one day one of the ponies rubbed Les against a barbed wire fence. He cut his foot pretty bad. Sometimes the horses would try to bite us as we put our foot in the stirrup. We also like to go for walks across the prairies. We would walk to a junk yard by our home and search for treasures. The most valuable thing we ever found was some pieces of purple glass. This is called "sun-purpled" because over time clear glass became purple from years of exposure to the sun. We were really looking for insulators that fell off the power poles. We thought the purple ones were worth a lot of money, but in reality they were just unique and not worth much.
Sometimes we would pick wildflowers like bluebells, wild sweet peas, loco weed, or cactus. The cactus’s were round and we like to kick them loose.
We also enjoyed walking to Grandpa Federer’s barn and playing in the hay loft. It had a pulley that extended the length of the barn and it was so fun to hang onto it and fly from one end of the loft to the other. Grandpa didn’t like us to play in the barn. I think he was worried we would get hurt. If we heard him coming we would hide in the loft and be very quiet. He wasn’t able to climb the ladder, so we would wait for him to drive away and then play a little longer.
Les and I wore a path on the prairie to Grandma and Grandpa ranch. We loved to visit with Grandma. She had a fun swing set to play on, and she always had cookies or candy for us. She had a special candy drawer where she kept the chocolate covered peanuts.
One time Les and I were goofing around and he was chewing on a straight pin. I’m not sure why, but I hit him in the stomach and he swallowed the pin. Of course, I felt terrible. The pin logged in his nasal cavity and had to be surgical removed.
Another time Les became very sick and nearly died when his appendix burst. I remember him laying in the family room on a rollaway bed. I was scared. The doctor had to do emergency surgery. He got what they called adhesions after the surgery. Abdominal adhesions are bands of scar tissue that form between abdominal tissues and organs, causing them to stick together, so he had to have another surgery. While he was in the hospital he got an infection from the IV. The doctor had to make an incision in his arm to allow the infection to drain. Les was in and out of the hospital numerous times. The incision in his arm was not closing and healing properly, so he had to have several skin grafts. It broke my heart when I would go visit him. He missed a lot of school. He liked to dye his hair blond, so while he was in the hospital I would sneak in and help him put the color on. He loved Tanya Tucker and I also brought him one of her albums.
We played in the tree patch behind our house. We liked to eat chokecherries, but they were so sour. Grandma made the best chokecherry jelly, it was a special treat. We had dirt clod fights too. Dad would plow between he rows of trees and that left big pieces of hard dirt. If you got hit it really hurt!
Sometimes we would go swimming in the dam near our house. It was so dirty, I don’t how we could stand it. We also rode our horses across the dam, it was fun to see them swim.
My older brother Marion smoked so one day we thought we would try it. We took some cigarettes from the glove box of his car and ran to the tree patch. We lit them and took a big inhale. We both started to choke and cough. Our lungs were burning and it felt like we were going to die. We never smoked again!
In the winter we would ice skate on the frozen dam. Sometimes it was so windy that we could stand at one end of the dam and it would literally blow us to the other side. That didn’t last long because we would get so cold. We also like to go sledding. Sometimes we would use an old hood from a car as a sled.
We were together so much. Les was truly my best friend. We didn’t have next door neighbors to play with, but we had each other. We played together at school also. We watched out for each other. Les was more outgoing than me so in Junior High he had more friends, and a better social life. I have always been so shy. I loved going to dances with him, we got to be good swing dancers. He helped me have more confidence. We did have one class together in high school, a math class and that was fun.
I remember we would be hungry late at night and we would cook up anything we could find. Needless to say some of our concoctions were pretty strange. Even though we tried to be quiet, Dad would here us and tell us to go to bed.
Les talked in his sleep and would even sleep walk sometimes. One time he said, “Don’t let that brat use your sewing machine.” I will never forget that!
He had a car, a Cutlass Supreme that wouldn’t go into reverse unless you revved up the engine a lot. It was so embarrassing because people would give us dirty looks and get mad.
We would sit in my room and talk. We would dream about going places. One time we talked about going to Australia. We also liked to make up silly stuff and record it on a tape recorder. We would record ourselves burping on the tape recorder too!
One Sunday we sang a duet at the Nazarene church. I accompanied us on the piano. Some of words to the song were:
I lived with Les and his wife Ann one summer. They had jobs at the Wyoming State hospital in Evanston, Wyoming. Les was a security guard and Ann was a nurse. I got a job in the main office as a secretary. It was a fun summer and I had some interesting experiences. I also worked with him one summer at a western store in Cheyenne call The Wrangler, it's still there.
We played in the tree patch behind our house. We liked to eat chokecherries, but they were so sour. Grandma made the best chokecherry jelly, it was a special treat. We had dirt clod fights too. Dad would plow between he rows of trees and that left big pieces of hard dirt. If you got hit it really hurt!
Sometimes we would go swimming in the dam near our house. It was so dirty, I don’t how we could stand it. We also rode our horses across the dam, it was fun to see them swim.
My older brother Marion smoked so one day we thought we would try it. We took some cigarettes from the glove box of his car and ran to the tree patch. We lit them and took a big inhale. We both started to choke and cough. Our lungs were burning and it felt like we were going to die. We never smoked again!
In the winter we would ice skate on the frozen dam. Sometimes it was so windy that we could stand at one end of the dam and it would literally blow us to the other side. That didn’t last long because we would get so cold. We also like to go sledding. Sometimes we would use an old hood from a car as a sled.
We were together so much. Les was truly my best friend. We didn’t have next door neighbors to play with, but we had each other. We played together at school also. We watched out for each other. Les was more outgoing than me so in Junior High he had more friends, and a better social life. I have always been so shy. I loved going to dances with him, we got to be good swing dancers. He helped me have more confidence. We did have one class together in high school, a math class and that was fun.
I remember we would be hungry late at night and we would cook up anything we could find. Needless to say some of our concoctions were pretty strange. Even though we tried to be quiet, Dad would here us and tell us to go to bed.
Les talked in his sleep and would even sleep walk sometimes. One time he said, “Don’t let that brat use your sewing machine.” I will never forget that!
He had a car, a Cutlass Supreme that wouldn’t go into reverse unless you revved up the engine a lot. It was so embarrassing because people would give us dirty looks and get mad.
We would sit in my room and talk. We would dream about going places. One time we talked about going to Australia. We also liked to make up silly stuff and record it on a tape recorder. We would record ourselves burping on the tape recorder too!
One Sunday we sang a duet at the Nazarene church. I accompanied us on the piano. Some of words to the song were:
"He said freely freely
You have received
Freely freely give
Go in My name
And because you believe
Others will know that I live..."
I lived with Les and his wife Ann one summer. They had jobs at the Wyoming State hospital in Evanston, Wyoming. Les was a security guard and Ann was a nurse. I got a job in the main office as a secretary. It was a fun summer and I had some interesting experiences. I also worked with him one summer at a western store in Cheyenne call The Wrangler, it's still there.
I only have happy memories of Les. I wish I could remember more. He always stuck by me even when I didn’t deserve his support or love.
Les tried his entire life to do what was right. He struggled with his testimony and stopped attending church. At the time I wrote this, Les’s temple work had not been done. However, I was in the temple and witnessed my Dad acting as proxy for him as he received his endowment. That was one year after his death on November 9, 1989. I feel peace and know that he's progressing, and that I will be with him again.
Today, November 9, 2014 is the 26th anniversary of my brother Les’s death. I can’t believe that many years have passed. We had been living in Utah for about a year when the phone rang just after midnight. It was my sister Roseanne calling to tell me Les had been shot and had died. I was confused and asked what was going on. Les was working in Denver as a legal technician for the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the time of his death.
November 9th will always be the saddest day of my life. It has been 30 years since my brother Les passed away. He has been gone for half of my life. His life was taken in a very senseless way, and without warning, no time to have one more hug or to say good-bye. I think about him often and I miss him. Until we meet again dear brother... I love you.
Today, November 9, 2014 is the 26th anniversary of my brother Les’s death. I can’t believe that many years have passed. We had been living in Utah for about a year when the phone rang just after midnight. It was my sister Roseanne calling to tell me Les had been shot and had died. I was confused and asked what was going on. Les was working in Denver as a legal technician for the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the time of his death.
November 9th will always be the saddest day of my life. It has been 30 years since my brother Les passed away. He has been gone for half of my life. His life was taken in a very senseless way, and without warning, no time to have one more hug or to say good-bye. I think about him often and I miss him. Until we meet again dear brother... I love you.
