Donald

(1917 – 2000)

Although I always loved my brother Donald, somehow I didn’t seem to feel quite as close to him as I did my other brothers and Mary Grace. It certainly wasn’t that Donald was not a good brother--it was almost like he was too good. This is rather hard to try to express, but it was it was kind of like Donald set such high standards as a model child that it was difficult for the rest of us to try to measure up. I don’t mean to infer that he ever acted superior in any way; he never, ever did. But where the rest of us tended to be rather boisterous, mischievous kids, Donald seemed by nature to be somewhat more serious.

Donald was seven and a half years older than I was--he was in the eighth grade when I started first grade--so maybe part of what I thought was his seriousness was just the difference in outlook between an “almost mature”

eighth grader and a childish first grader. But I think it was more than that. He really was more mature for his age than the rest of us. And he inherited a little more of Dad’s high moral principles and ethics, too. The only negative side of this was that once in a while he felt that it was his duty to tell on us. This was never in any mean or “get even” sense; he just felt strongly that we should all do what was right. At the moment the only incident of this kind that I can think of was when I was about four and tried (unsuccessfully) to look through the keyhole in the kitchen door where Mother was bathing in a washtub. Donald reported this to Dad, who gave me a rather stern lecture on “we don’t do things like that in the Baird family household.” I then had to sit on the step (time out) and think about it for a while.

Donald had all the good attributes. He was bright, thoughtful, considerate, practical, generous and loving. He was a little less daring than the rest of us, but that was good; he talked us out of some pretty wild, harebrained schemes and tempered our actions on some other crazy things. But I don’t mean to imply that he was “straight-laced and somber” all the time. He had a great sense of humor, loved joking with us and joined in most of our wild activities with gusto.

Donald took his responsibilities seriously, and was a good worker. Dozens of Mother’s diary notations tell of Donald making cakes, cookies and pies. When he was fourteen he made a four-tier birthday cake for Mother’s birthday. And he baked all these things on an old-fashioned wood/coal stove. A funny incident occurred when he was just learning to bake: he had put in too much wood and the oven temperature gauge rose to higher level than he wanted, so he put a cold damp cloth on the gauge, thinking that this would cool down the oven. Of course, this had no effect on the actual temperature in the oven, but it cracked the glass on the gauge. That gauge was cracked for years until we finally got electricity and got rid of the old coal stove.

Here’s an interesting memo from Mother’s diary: “Donald and John do their work in a widely differently manner. Donald works slow and steady and can hold himself to it even if he doesn’t like what he is doing. Nobody works harder and faster than John if he likes the work, but he can hardly make himself do it if he doesn’t.”

Although he wasn’t particularly athletic, Donald went out for basketball in his first year in high school. A humorous notation in Mother’s diary states that she regrets that we didn’t go to a particular game because (unexpectedly) Donald was put into the game and “almost made a basket!”

From a very young age Donald always knew that he wanted to be a lawyer. And he worked hard to prepare for this. He was a good student and he really practiced and practiced to become a good speaker. In high school he learned two or three orations a year and did well in public speaking competitions. Dad wrote or adapted most of his material, and coached him on how to speak effectively. He also arranged for ministers in Bethany to give Donald pointers on how to make a good presentation. We were all proud of Donald for his public speaking ability!