DAD
My father, Donald Vaun
Parry, was born on May 15th, 1936 in Ogden, UT. He had
black wavy hair and was a very cute little boy.
His parents had had a daughter before him, but she passed away of a
ruptured appendix at age three. A little
sister came along after my father, and they named her Elaine.
My father was born in the church and was baptized, but as he got
older fell away from the church and became somewhat of a rebel, getting into
mischief early on. When my father was
ten, there was a polio epidemic, and doctors encouraged parents to keep their
children inside where it was cool. One
very hot day, Donald was at a neighborhood friend’s house. My mom (who lived two doors down from my
father throughout childhood) overheard a neighbor say, “That Parry boy ran
outside stark naked!” His friends had
dared him, and Donald never backed down from a dare. On another occasion, young Donald and his
friends snuck onto a prison farm, stole a horse, and rode it until it got stuck
in the mud.
Although Donald was a bit of a troublemaker, he was always polite
and respectful to others and was generally well liked. Don was also highly intelligent and
resourceful, showing a knack for entrepreneurship from an early age. At 11, he made money selling donuts
door-to-door in his neighborhood. At 14,
he got his first job as a bagger at a grocery store. By 17, he was manager of the produce
department, and it was at this time he and my mother, Rae, were married. By age 20, he had worked his way all the way
up to store manager. Eventually, he got tired of the grocery
business and started working at different health clubs and learning everything
about the business. He was one of the pioneers of the health club industry. From there he managed the clubs and kept
advancing until ultimately he decided he’d rather be running his own
clubs. This was about the time I was
born. He designed his dream health club,
enlisted the help of an architect so, and financed the business through
investors that believed in his ideas.
Dad’s creativity was a large part of his success, and despite having no formal
education in the field of architecture, he was the visionary who designed each
and every one of his clubs. His
buildings were unlike any others, both inside and out, and at one point he
owned 10 different state-of-the-art health clubs.
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It was during this time period I would beg my
dad to read to me a book called, “Song of the South” and it was his Br’er
Rabbit’s voice that made the book come to life.
I also loved his impersonation of Donald Duck. It was a special time I had with my dad. So, the health club business remained
successful for 20 years until the State of New York passed a law which made all
health club contracts invalid. Without
enough capital to finance its own contracts, the business was about to
fail. Joe, one of Dad’s partners,
convinced him that if he signed over his stock in the business Joe could go to
bankers out of town and get the money they needed to keep the business afloat. Joe never intended to sign over the stock
back to my dad. He simply took the money
and chained the locks at all of the spas and sold the business. The new owners did not know how to run the
business without my dad’s involvement and six months later, it went
bankrupt. On the evening when he signed
over the contracts to Joe, he had a funny feeling and became depressed and said
to my mother, “I think I may have just sold our future down the river.” From that day on, he struggled to get back on top
again. He didn’t invest much money into
savings while he was successful, so we had some money to carry us for a little
while, but not enough to start a new business from scratch. He had to start over in his late
thirties. We left New York to live in
Las Vegas and this was when he decided to earn his living as a gambler. He was very good at it and he learned how to
count cards before the casinos caught onto that. For two years he was successful at this. Then life as a gambler became very boring to
him, and he began to consider going back into business for himself again, but
even after leaving Las Vegas, he always loved to play cards on his desk while
watching sports on TV.
My father always wanted to live his life to the fullest, and had
many indulgent habits. His food choices were often high in fat, and he ate few
vegetables, preferring instead basic salads loaded with dressing. In addition to eating unhealthy foods, he
drank alcohol and smoked cigarettes excessively. This habit started getting worse after he
lost his business in New York City. He
was obviously trying to dull the heartache he was going through. His excesses may have not been in the best
interest of his health, but it was how he dealt with the stress of each day,
and he was never a mean or irresponsible drunk.
My father also loved jazz and had an extensive collection of records he
used to enjoy immensely. His favorite
way to unwind after work was with a great album. The instant the needle would hit the record,
he would close his eyes and take in the music to his heart’s soul. He would just snap his fingers and bob his
head low against his chest. He had always
had a dream of opening up a jazz night club, and decided San Francisco would be
a good place to do it. After searching the
bay area for awhile, he found a beat-up old basement space which looked
promising. Upon researching the history
of the space, it turned out that it had been a very famous jazz venue called
The Dawn Club where popular musicians of that time had played. How fitting for my Dad! So he, two of my older brothers, and a few
friends and construction workers started the process of restoring the building
to its original glamour. They uncovered
marble stairs, mahogany walls, stained glass windows, and beautiful chandeliers. When the renovation was finished, he named
the new club Cherries. In the first
eight months of business, Cherries already had big names such as Woody Herman,
Jackie & Roy Krall, and many of the top Jazz musicians from San Francisco
playing its stage. Once again though,
due to state government control, the business was put into jeopardy because of
the lack of capital needed to meet some vague building code requirements. Although he had gotten an inspection and
business license before opening up the restaurant, Cherries was in the basement
of a tall building and the fire department demanded that my dad install a flue
from the basement all the way to the top of a 35 story building, and wouldn’t let
him open the restaurant for business until the project was finished. The cost for the flue was $50,000 dollars and
he simply didn’t have the money, so once again, the government put him out of
business.
My dad had a set of weights in the garage of our home in
Sausalito, but it dawned on me that although he had operated many health clubs over
the years, I had never seen him exercise.
I believe it was simply because he could not find the time due to the
many hours he put into building his career in the health club industry.
We left San Francisco to
live in Alexandria, VA. He was offered a
partnership with some of his old business partners in Annapolis, MD. This health club was about an hour away from
where we lived. Mom worked with him there
and it was doing well for four years.
His partners had different ideas about the direction in managing the
club. They wanted to change things
around and cheapen the membership there and my dad didn’t agree with it. Dad had very high standards for his business. He just left the business believing he would
start again on his own. It was in my
senior year and Dad had chosen a location in Reisterstown, MD and pre-sales were
underway for a few months when he learned he had a brain tumor. This had changed our lives dramatically as we
had no income and only had $27,000 in savings to both hold us over and get his
new business started. Also, my mother’s
back had gone out and was laid up for a month.
It was so bad that for awhile, she couldn’t go to work to help support
the family. It was a devastating
time. Dad underwent brain surgery and
radiation treatment. It was successful
and he was able to recover enough to return back to work, although he was never
really the same person again. The
operation on his brain had taken away much of his drive. His personality also changed a little and he was
more laid back due to the effects of surgery and medication.
Nicole’s
Spa Salon was born and this became a family business. My mother and I worked there. His sister Elaine taught aerobic classes in
Salt Lake City and he requested that she produce exercise videos for the club. I was a Nautilus and aerobics instructor and
taught aerobic classes on the platform along with my Aunt Elaine in the
video. It was fun to work with my
family, but I love exercise and I wanted my exercise time to be separate from
the workplace. Nicole’s Spa Salon was
successful for three years until the state of Maryland passed a law which
required all operating health clubs to put up a $50,000 bond to cover
membership. Once again the government
interfered with my dad’s business because we couldn’t come up with the large
sum of money. This caused the members to
lose their club and we lost our business.
It was during this time period that I married my first husband Jim, and
had my son, Joshua. Jim and I moved to
Chesterfield, VA, while my dad decided to move to Atlantic City to become a
blackjack dealer. He went to Dealer’s
School and graduated but they wouldn’t give him a license to work in the casino
because of financial difficulties in the past from losing the business. Another stumbling block! My mother’s back eventually healed and she
was strong enough to work at a retail store Casual Corner in sales and
management. Dad struggled to get a
decent job in New Jersey. Many employers
told my dad he was overqualified. He
worked as a night clerk in a hotel at the Brigantine Inn, but struggled to stay
awake due to the medication he was taking and had trouble controlling his
seizures and lost the job. He then
worked at a men’s clothing store in one of the hotels. His seizures were getting worse as the tumor
started to grow back and began irritating his brain. Grand dad Vaun (his father) was living with
us and helped pay the bills because my mother couldn’t do it all on her
own. Financially, it became increasingly
difficult for my parents. Eventually,
they moved back to Salt Lake City and lived in the same house that my dad grew
up in. Years earlier, Dad had helped pay
off the house when he was successful in New York. Dad wanted to earn a living but things were
not the same as his brain was not functioning normally. He took early retirement and mom went to work
full time at Casual Corner. She had been
lucky enough to get a transfer to Salt Lake City when they moved. Dad had to have another brain surgery soon
after they arrived in SLC. This left him
in a coma for three weeks. By the third
week, my mother was becoming overwhelmed.
She didn’t know what to do. I
asked her to come with me to the chapel inside the hospital and pray about
it. She explained to me that she had not
prayed in many years. I knew in my heart
that Heavenly Father is always there waiting to hear from each of us. He will listen to the voice of the most
humble. I shared that with her and
convinced her to still pray and just say what was in her heart. When she did this she felt like a weight had been
lifted off her shoulders. I knew it
would help calm her and bring her peace.
It was such a wonderful moment to watch her pray for the first time in
my life. Later she prayed more with my
brother and her sister. Not only did
they pray for my father to come out of the coma, they also prayed for others in
the hospital. There was a young boy who
had been in a coma for one week and another young girl who had been in one for
three months. They prayed for them to
come out of their comas as well. And
then a miracle happened. They all woke
from their comas, including my father.
This experience strengthened my faith in prayer even more. After he woke up, he worked very hard for
three months in rehabilitation trying to gain back his normal body function,
but the brain damage was too extensive and he was never the same again. After my mom’s dad passed away they moved into
my mother’s old home that she grew up in.
It’s funny how life put my parents back into the same homes they grew up
in. My mom’s mother needed to be cared
for. It was at this time my mother had
to quit her job at Casual Corner to be a full time caretaker for both her
mother and her husband. Then came a time
when my dad had to leave this life. He
was becoming more ill and we always thought the brain tumor was what he was
going to die of, but it was actually lung cancer that ended his life. He died on my mother’s birthday, November 1st. Dad was in extreme pain and it was an answer
to my mother’s prayers that he was able to return to his heavenly home. He was only 63 years young. Two
years after the passing of my father, I asked my Uncle Jed (Aunt Elaine’s
husband) to go through the endowment for my dad in the temple. It was an unforgettable and wonderful
experience for all of us. It gave me and
other family members peace knowing he will be able to finish his work in the
next life.
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