My father, Jacob Kapp, was the son of Dutch immigrants who, with their families, joined the Church in Holland and emigrated to Ogden, Utah, as teenagers in the early 1900’s. They met in Ogden, married, and my father was their second child.
About twenty years later, my mother Ruth Saunders chose him over many other suitors because he was “good-looking, congenial, knew how to work hard, and was firm in the faith.” I was the second of four children born to these “goodly parents.” The greatest gift my parents gave to their children was the constancy of their love for each other and for the gospel.
Janice Kapp Perry with her father Jake.
A Trial of Faith
Two months after I was born, Dad had surgery to remove a malignant growth from his neck. The doctor felt the operation was a success, but within a year the cancer had returned. They removed it two more times, but still it returned and doctors offered him no hope.
Mother and Dad went to the temple and placed his name on the prayer roll. Dad spent a few hours in a private room in the temple, pleading with the Lord for his life and asking specifically that he would be able to live long enough to raise his growing family. He had the impression that there was something more the doctor could try, and returned to his office to inquire. The doctor suggested experimental x-ray treatments but doubted they would help.
Dad’s prayer was answered, for after two treatments the growth was gone and did not return. My Dad taught me faith, and to expect miracles.
An Unexpected Adventure
My earliest memories of my dad are watching him build our first home in Ogden. He worked at various jobs to support our family, but soon after our new home was finished he received an impression of the spirit that we should move to Oregon along with my two uncles’ families. There they could help build up the Church and could plow, plant and harvest crops and raise hearty children.
It was quite an exodus with three families of children and all the milk cows they could buy in Ogden, traveling in a caravan to our new farm home in Oregon.
From then on, Dad was a content farmer. On week days I saw him only in bib overalls, a light blue work shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, engineer’s boots and a baseball cap. We survived that first year by milking 35 cows night and morning.
Then he began crop farming – wheat, alfalfa, silage corn, and eventually potatoes and beets. He was up at 5 a.m. to milk the cows, then worked all day in the fields before milking the cows again in the late afternoon. We suffered the financial reverses typical of most rural families, but I always felt secure knowing my dad would do whatever it took to provide for his family. Dad taught us to value work.
Steadfast
Dad was a capable, honest man who commanded respect and had a most congenial personality that drew people to him. He accepted many different callings in the Church and fulfilled them faithfully. We always arrived at church one half hour before the meetings started and waited in our car for the custodian to unlock the doors.
Following the tradition of his Dutch parents he was not demonstrative with his affection, and the words, “I love you” didn’t come easily for him. But never once in my life did I wonder if he loved me. His love was in and through everything he did for his family. I trusted in his quiet strength.
One afternoon when I was about twelve, Dad asked if I would run out to the corral and fasten the barbed-wire gate. I asked if he were sure the electric fencer was turned off and he said, “Yes, I’m sure.” Trusting him implicitly, I ran to the corral, took hold of the barbed wire and was rudely knocked back on my behind by the strong electric current.
Dad, observing the scene from the house, ran quickly across the yard, threw his arms around me, and sobbed as he expressed the most heartfelt apology I ever expect to hear. He had forgotten to turn the fencer off, and he was truly heartbroken for what he had caused. The electrical shock was nothing compared to the love I felt from my Dad.
Another time I was helping him round up some cattle that had gotten out of the pasture. As I chased them through a silage pit my ankle turned and I severely sprained the ligaments in my ankle and fell to the ground, crying out in pain. Dad and Mother ran to help me, and I put one arm around each of them and limped painfully toward the house.
Then I cried, “Dad, what about the cows – they’re getting away!”
I will never forget his answer: “They’re just cows, sis. You’re my daughter.” I learned priorities from my dad.
As I stood at high school graduation to give my Salutatory speech, I could see my parents sitting on the front row of the auditorium. Halfway through my speech I saw tears running down my father’s cheeks and realized in that moment, perhaps for the first time, the depth of his love for me. I can still see that poignant scene in my mind’s eye.
A Farmer with Other Talents
Though Dad constantly put in long hours on the farm and dairy, he was still willing to put on an interesting costume at the end of the day and sing in one of the many musical productions Mother wrote for the church and community. One of my favorites was hearing him sing “Mammy” as he impersonated Al Jolson in mother’s riotously funny Minstrel Show. He and my brother Jack also performed singing/dancing duets as Bing and Gary Crosby and stole the show. I loved his beautiful natural voice, which seemed to have an endless range.
One of the great institutions in our area was the Kapp Orchestra. Mother played piano and Dad played drums (along with a fiddler and sax player) for almost every church and community dance for almost 25 years. I did all my high school dating and dancing to the rhythm of their band, and in those days all ages danced at the church almost every Friday night. My parents showed me there was a time to work and a time to play!
Life-Changing Counsel
I always knew my parents loved me and wanted the best for me. I knew they would give their lives for me if necessary. I decided at an early age that I could completely trust them and I would always obey their counsel.
It was easy when I was young but got a bit more difficult through my teen years. I wasn’t allowed to go steady, I wasn’t allowed to go bowling (because the bowling alley was located in the back of a tavern), and I wasn’t allowed to play with my dance band on Saturday nights because Dad knew the dance would go into the Sabbath and there would be a rougher crowd there than when we played for school events. I balked slightly a few times but came to know that obeying made me happy.
Later I received some life-changing counsel from my father that was difficult for me to accept. After high school I left home to live with my grandparents in Ogden and work for the summer as a secretary. I met, dated and became engaged to a co-worker and we went home to meet my parents.
While Dad was irrigating out in the field and praying for a confirmation that this marriage was right, he received an undeniable revelation from the spirit that it was not right for me to marry the man to whom I was engaged. Dad met with us together that night and asked if I would return the engagement ring and use my scholarship to BYU to study music as I had planned.
It was a difficult thing for him to ask of me and an even more difficult thing for me to accept, but the trust that had grown between us through the years prevailed and I knew I must follow his counsel. His wisdom later proved to be inspired. Two years later, after two exhilarating years of music study at BYU, I married Douglas Colton Perry, a returned missionary who was in most of my music classes. He has loved me and helped me reach my potential in all aspects of my life during the last fifty-one years of our marriage. My father’s counsel changed the direction of my life for good.
The Importance of Education
Dad was not able to graduate from high school because he had to work to provide extra income for his family.
But he knew the value of education and his four children always knew he would find a way for us to receive a college education. We are all BYU-educated, and some have Masters Degrees in their fields.
My brother Jack (deceased) was an engineer, my brother Gary is an artist who paints western and church art, I am a composer trying to add to the simple music of the Church, and my sister Ann is an accomplished composer/performer. Our father worked constantly to provide us the opportunity of a good education with which we could serve others and find personal happiness throughout our lives.
A Life Cut Short
We lost our father early, at fifty-seven. He had prayed in the temple some thirty-two years earlier for the blessing of being able to live long enough to raise his children, some of whom had not yet been born. The Lord granted that specific blessing, and then the cancer returned after a three-decade hiatus and eventually took his life. It was hard for all of us to bear, but the miracle of those extra years he was granted made all the difference to his family.
A Final Tribute
In 2008, Tabernacle Choir Conductor, Mack Wilberg, asked if I would be willing to write a Father’s Day song for the choir to sing sometime in the future. It gave me the perfect opportunity to reflect on all that I loved and appreciated about my own father and is truly a heartfelt, personal expression of my love for my dad, Jacob Kapp.
“My Father’s Faith”
A father’s faith can bless his little children
And help them rise above life’s daily storms.
A father works each day to keep his dear ones
Ever protected, safe and warm.
My father’s praise can send my spirit soaring
And help me see the good I may achieve.
My father’s trust can fill my soul with courage
And help my doubting heart believe.
My father’s tears can somehow say, “I love you”
When words fall silent in his tender heart.
Through daily acts of service and of caring
His deepest feelings he imparts.
My father’s prayers can call down heaven’s blessings
And keep his children walking in the light.
His constant strength is steady as a lighthouse
That brings me safely through the night.
My father’s arms can offer consolation
When I, in sorrow, turn my heart toward home.
His loving voice resounds within my being
To help me know I’m not alone.
My father’s eyes can see past faults and failings
And still imagine all I may become.
And when I fall he’s there to walk beside me
To tell me I can overcome.
My father’s love will shine through generations –
A gentle force that guides me through the years.
My father’s faith will be my inspiration
And make my path to heaven clear.
(Janice Kapp Perry, 2008)
