My Brother, Edmund Garrett Barlow - The Noblest Man I Have Ever Known

My Brother, Edmund Garrett Barlow - The Noblest Man I Have Ever Known

At fifteen (1930), I left school to go to California to work. Mother and father had separated and this necessitated some changes in our family. It was then I came under the close influence of the noblest man I have ever known; my brother Ed [Edmund Garrett Barlow]. I realize now the love of Jonathan and David because I feel the same way for him. I've made some mistakes in my life for which I must answer, but I can truthfully say that these mistakes may have been more serious if it hadn't been for the love and devotion of a righteous elder brother. My prayers and hopes for him can only be measured by our Father in Heaven. While we lived together in an apartment in California, he was my father and mother, big brother and friend all rolled into one. As I look back from today's vantage point I cannot begin to estimate his blessing in my life. I'm sure at times I must have been a burden to him, but from then to now I have never heard from his lips anything to indicate it.

I took classes for a brief time at Santa Monica High School and then went back to work full time at Irvine's Chevrolet in Los Angeles. When I turned 19, with my brother's urging, Bishop Joseph E. Young called me on a mission in November of 1933. As the date indicates this was during the depression and money was a scarce item around our home as in many others. Money didn't seem to be the problem to me however, as very little was said to me regarding it at that time. It was not until I returned from my mission and was mature enough to appreciate it that Mother explained how concerned they each had to be to acquire sufficient money each month to support me in the mission field in Australia. My brother Ed and his wife Evva carried most of the financial burden for my mission.

The night came for my interview with the Stake President LeGrande Richards and it so happened I was to play a M-Man basketball game that night at Venice High School and my interview lasted longer than I expected, which necessitated hurrying. I picked up three other fellows and was speeding along Lincoln Boulevard at 80 miles an hour when we collided head on with a Studebaker driven by a lady who was driving on the wrong side of the road. At the time we collided, all four of us were riding in the front seat and two of us put our heads through the plate glass window! The car was totally demolished, but none of us were injured other than slight cuts and bruises, which was miraculous. The car was a cloth top roadster and only 3 years old, but after the accident it sold for only $26.50 to a wrecking company. Of course this put a further financial burden on our family, but their love and support was there for me nevertheless.

How my brother had the courage to assume this financial burden on top of all the other burdens he was carrying, I shall never know. I can assume and this rightly so, that it was because of his sure faith in our Father in Heaven that all would work out for the best.