This letter is devoted to Tammy. I loved her, and I still do. She was my life partner and the mother of our five amazing children. We built a wonderful family together. We were married for nearly 30 years, and I always sought to keep her safe and protected. She was the anchor of my life, and I never considered harming her.
Tammy had increasingly severe health issues in the final months of her life, but very few people knew about them. She was an intensely private person who rarely shared personal details with others, much less that her health was suffering. She would put on a brave smile in public and act as if nothing was bothering her. But even those of us who knew about her health struggles never expected her to pass away so suddenly, and her death has somewhat overshadowed the remarkable woman she was.
I want you to get to know the living, vibrant, beautiful Tammy who blessed so many people with her talents and unique traits. She was strong, yet so delicate. We were united in our parenting efforts, our religious beliefs, and in the publishing company we operated together for 15 years. She radiated goodness and charisma, generating a positive impact on everyone around her. She was very kind and loving, but especially to children and animals. She was always on the lookout for the underdog who might need a boost in life.
Tammy and I got married in our youth. I was 21 and she was 19, and over the years we essentially became one. We didn’t officially meet until after I returned home from a two-year LDS Church mission to northern New Jersey. I arrived back in my hometown of Springville, Utah, in July 1989, and a few days later I saw my brother’s 1988 high school yearbook on his shelf. I flipped it open and saw a student spotlight about a girl named Tammy Douglas. As I looked at her face, I felt a jolt of electricity pass through me. This beautiful girl with a dazzling smile had my attention! I realized she would would have been a sophomore when I was a senior, but I couldn’t remember her. I wondered how I could find out more about her. I asked my brother if he knew her, and he said she was working that summer for Springville City. I was in luck!
Tammy later told me she had been keeping an eye on me since her sophomore year, when I was on the Student Council. She had watched me perform in the crazy skits we did during school assemblies, and had also kept track of me in the school halls. When I was on my mission, she had even told her friends, “I’m going to date Chad Daybell when he gets home.”
I attended a church activity about a week after the yearbook experience, and I spotted Tammy immediately when I entered the room. She was playing volleyball, so I joined the other team. Soon we rotated and found ourselves five feet apart, staring through the net at each other. After a moment, she said, “I’m going to spike it in your face!” I smiled, but the only response I could come up with was, “Oh yeah?” Very eloquent, I know. But in reality she had left me tongue-tied. Tammy’s eyes seemed to sparkle, and I was delighted that this petite, dynamic woman was clearly spunky as well. I was smitten!
When I got home I couldn’t get her out of my mind, so I called her and asked her on a date. I was very relieved and excited when she accepted. Her parents later told me Tammy had happily danced around the living room after she hung up the phone.
Our first date went great, and we became inseparable right from the start. We were both attending BYU-Provo that fall and working part-time, but we spent every spare moment together. We became engaged to be married the night before Thanksgiving.
I had been thrilled to discover Tammy loved music as much as I did, including some alternative bands such as Oingo Boingo and Depeche Mode. We loved to blast their songs in the car and sing loudly along. As Christmas approached, I told Tammy I had gotten her a gift she would love. But I had discovered she was a bit of a prankster, and I had become her new favorite target. So I decided to give her a little payback. I had been given a pair of really nice writing pens in a small rectangular box. On Christmas Day, I handed her the wrapped box, and she eagerly opened it. I kept a straight face as she pretended to be happy about the two pens. I said, “I thought you could use them at work. They’re really nice.”
She nodded and said, “Thank you. I love them.” She started to put the box aside when I said, “Maybe you should look underneath the pens.” She removed the pens to find two front-row tickets to an upcoming Oingo Boingo concert. She let out a relieved laugh, then bowled me over, showering me with hugs and kisses!
We were married in the LDS Temple in Manti, Utah in March 1990, just over seven months after we met. We held our wedding reception that evening in the Springville Art Museum, and seemingly half the town showed up to congratulate us. Tammy was a lovely bride, and I felt like the luckiest man on earth.
We rented an apartment in Springville, and we really loved being newlyweds. I had a full scholarship to BYU and worked part-time and Tammy accepted a full-time secretarial position with Springville City that paid quite well, so we felt rich! We loved to eat at several favorite restaurants, go to movies, and just be together. We had a fabulous time at the Oingo Boingo concert, and those first couple of years of marriage we attended several others, including a very crazy B-52s concert where we danced the night away.
Going to concerts continued throughout our marriage, and we would take our kids along as they got older. We also loved to hold family dance parties with our kids in the front room, even after moving to Idaho. Even now, the children tell me they’ll get in the car and certain obscure but meaningful songs will often be on the radio, and it feels like Tammy is saying she is nearby. Maybe those songs on the radio are just a coincidence, but either way it reminds our children of their wonderful mother and the fun we had as a family.
I was grateful for Tammy’s complete faith and trust in God. In early 2004, I felt we should start our own book publishing company. I knew it would be a challenge, but I sensed it would be very successful. I told Tammy my feelings, and although she was apprehensive about the idea, she agreed to pray about it. In response, she said she received the strongest spiritual confirmation of her life and that we should move forward with it.
We formed Spring Creek Book Company the following month, and by the end of 2004 we had published 24 books by several talented authors. We sold our books in hundreds of stores across the United States, including Borders and Barnes and Noble. We published several bestsellers, and over the years we produced more than 100 books by 55 different authors. We won several awards from bookseller organizations, and Tammy deserved the credit. She was the backbone of the company, and she made great things happen through her promotional ideas and internet marketing. Tammy’s mom Phyllis joined the company as our lead salesperson, and the two of them were a dynamic duo in selling books.
I will stop here, but in the next letter I will discuss our family’s move to Idaho in 2015.
Bookshelf
One of my duties as the editor-in-chief of Spring Creek Book Company was to sort through the many manuscript submissions we would receive. On the company website Tammy had designed, she had created a section on how authors should format their manuscript, and the types of topics our company was looking for.
As our success grew, we were receiving dozens of manuscripts each month. There were a lot of aspiring authors out there! However, we only had a few openings each year, since many of our authors were writing additional books. But I still looked at each submission just to make sure we weren’t missing a diamond waiting to be discovered. I would take the most promising ones home for Tammy to read through, and this team effort worked well in maintaining a high level of quality in our books. It was hard to send rejection letters to those authors we didn’t select, but I tried to recommend other publishers who might be a better fit for their books.
One day I opened a manila envelope and pulled out a manuscript that immediately caught my eye. It told the story of Willard and Rebecca Bean, who were asked by LDS Church President Joseph F. Smith in the early 1900s to serve a mission in Palmyra, New York, the birthplace of Mormonism. The problem the Beans faced was that the Church members had left Palmyra many years before, and the townspeople certainly didn’t want them to return. But the Beans moved to Palmyra, endured initial persecution, and slowly began mending fences, literally and figuratively. Over time they helped turn around the negative feelings there, purchased historic locations for the Church, and finally concluded their mission more than two decades later.
The manuscript, written by Rand Packer, was powerful and inspirational. I couldn’t put it down It was one of those rare moments as a publisher when you feel, “Whoa, this is great. I need to sign this book immediately!”
The book’s title is “A Lion and a Lamb”, referencing Willard as the bold, sometimes brash lion, with Rebecca as the wise, sweet lamb who won over the townspeople with her kindness. I took the manuscript home for Tammy to read, and she was enthusiastic about it. We both knew it would be a bestseller. I contacted Rand the next day, and when we met, there was an instant connection, like meeting a dear friend.
We signed a publishing contract and put the book into production. The initial sales were strong, but then it just kept selling, year after year, especially in the LDS bookstore in Palmyra itself. Word of mouth was strong, and rightly so, because it is a genuinely great story of faith and perseverance.
During this same timeframe, the accomplished LDS filmmaker T.C. Christensen had released several successful high-quality movies and he was interested in producing one based on “A Lion and a Lamb.” The film’s title would be “The Fighting Preacher”, after Willard Bean’s tendency to use his fists as well as his tongue to preach the good word.
A film deal was reached, and in July 2019 the movie had its world premiere in Salt Lake City. Tammy and I were invited as guests at the first screening, and we were very pleased with the film. It has all of the elements of drama, humor, and heartfelt emotion that are trademarks of all of T.C.’s films. “The Fighting Preacher” had a long run in theaters, a rarity for LDS films, and is now available on streaming services.
After the movie premiere, Tammy and I were invited to meet T.C. and the film’s actors. Rand was there, and we shook hands and smiled at each other as if to say, “Can you believe where that little manuscript has led us?” We felt humbled we had played a role in bringing the Beans’ story to the world.
You can check out the book here (paid link)
Musical Notes
Despite my love of music, I don’t play any instruments, and my singing skills are barely adequate. I took piano lessons for about a year when I was eight years old, but I was much more interested in learning to play baseball, and my blossoming musical career came to an end.
Meanwhile, Tammy had a natural talent for playing instruments. She first learned to play the clarinet, then she switched to drums when she was part of the Springville High marching band. When our children began taking piano lessons, Tammy joined in and took lessons at the same time.
Thankfully, Tammy’s musical abilities have been passed down to our children, who all followed in her footsteps of learning to play the clarinet. As the five kids worked their way through Springville Junior High, Tammy and I enjoyed a decade’s worth of seasonal band performances. Toward the end, we knew those songs pretty well! We were grateful to Mr. Booth, the band instructor, for the positive influence he was on our children. Some of our children have branched out to the synthesizer, guitar, and singing, and they have produced some wonderful songs.
In our family we all have different musical tastes, but one musical group we are united on is the British band Keane. With Tom Chaplin on vocals, Tim Rice-Oxley on keyboard, Richard Hughes on drums, and Jesse Quin on guitar, their songs just clicked for us. Tammy and I attended the band’s first Salt Lake concert and loved it, and from then on any Keane concert in Utah became an event for the whole family.
After we moved to Idaho, we still traveled back to Springville regularly. Keane was an essential part of our road trip setlist. I believe Keane is currently on hiatus, but our family will always be big fans. One of Tammy’s favorite Keane songs is “Spiralling”, which she loved to sing and dance along with. Enjoy!