His Home Is Clean and Orderly. the Shelves Are Filled with Books and the Walls Are Covered

His home is clean and orderly. The shelves are filled with books and the walls are covered with paintings of landscapes.

Through a door on the north side of his house is his office. It is also full of books, but they are not all on shelves. Instead of paintings, there are posters about the history of the dairy industry. In a small room at the back of the office is a shelf full of jars containing his life’s work.

Barnard Silver began this work while serving an LDS mission in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. During church services one Sunday, he held a five-year-old boy who started to cry. He carried him out of the chapel and into a classroom, and realized he was crying from hunger.

“I could put my thumb and finger around his leg, and I resolved to produce a food that could feed the hungry children of Africa,” he said.

After the fall of the iron curtain, Silver traveled to Hungary to meet with Dr. Joseph Barta at the University of Food Technology in Budapest. Barta had been working to provide an energy food for Russian mountain climbers who were planning to climbMt. Everest. He said he needed a subtance that would provide energy for 12 hours instead of the eight minutes sucrose provides.

Barta discovered that by extracting inulin, a plant’s natural healing system, and adding fructose from wild cherries, he had the perfect food for the Russian alpine team. They were the first team on the top of Mt.Everest.

Silver became interested in Barta’s research and arranged for him to tour the United States and look for possible distributors. The two met with Nu Skin in Provo, UT, and found they were interested. The company said it would be interested if the product would be imported from Hungary, but the Hungarian plant had been shut down as Russia turned off its free electricity source. “I decided it would be better to set up a plant in the United States,” Silver said.

As he was beginning his junior year at MIT, Silver decided to leave the LDSChurch. He had completed summer training for the Army and was planning to finish his last two years of college. Before he could begin, his bishop told him to serve a mission. Silver said he would not, as he no longer wished to be associated with the LDSChurch. He had a hard time saying no, however, and agreed to go to Salt Lake City for an interview.

Silver did not expect to be persuaded in his interview and even searched the Bible for justification to not attend. He came across John 7:17, which says, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” He was convinced.

“Darn that scripture,” Silver said in recounting the experience. He passed the interview and shortly after received a letter from LDSChurch president David O. McKay calling him to serve in the western Canada mission for two years.

Silver returned in Sept. 1955 and immediately registered again at MIT. He earned his B.S. in mechanical engineering and minored in chemical, electrical, and nuclear engineering. He worked for a few months with General Electric’s aircraft nuclear propulsion department before attending Stanford for nine months to earn a master’s degree in engineering mechanics.

Silver joined the Army full-time after finishing his education. “It was 1978-1979,” he said. After a pause, he laughed to himself. “No…it was 1958-1959. I’m not as old as I sometimes think I am, but I’m not that young, either.”

Army service took him to Florida, where he worked at the Aberdeen Proving Ground as the only army officer on an air force base. He worked with the U.S. and British authorities on nuclear damage.

Upon returning from Army service, Silver was ready for full-time employment. Although General Electric had offered him a job, he decided to work for his father’s company. Their studies of sugar cane took them to and from Hawaii for several years.

In 1963, Silver received a letter from his sister inviting him to her graduation in Salt Lake City. Silver said he sent a curt reply saying his sister must make it worth his time by finding him the perfect girl to date. Three months later he received a response saying she had found the person: Cherry Bushman.

Silver traveled to Salt Lake City and first attended the honors banquet. When the announcer said Cherry Bushman’s name repeatedly for each award, he became intimidated. They were married Aug. 12, 1963.

Approximately a year later, the couple had their first child, a daughter named Madelyn. Five years later, their second child, Cannon, was born. Silver served his second mission in the quorum of the seventy in the Denver stake for seven years. During this time, he gave the first LDS sermons in the Dominican Republic, Mali, Venezuela, and other locations.

Professionally, Silver had been working on renewable fuel for tractors to avoid importing foreign oil. He learned the Jerusalem artichoke produced the most complete carbohydrate from which to produce ethanol. He needed a distilling column that would allow each individual farm to put up a little factory that could produce its own ethanol. Between the distillation column equipment and control, the minimum cost is normally about three million dollars. Silver figured out a way to produce a self-refluxing distillation column for less than three hundred thousand dollars that could be set up for about six hundred thousand dollars.

Presently, Silver and his wife provide LDS church services at the prison as part of the Wasatch Branch. They usually arrive by 6:30 a.m. to teach Sunday school.

“It has been the most profound spiritual experience of my life,” Silver said of the opportunity. “They have taught me more than I have taught them.”

Silver’s service at the prison is not limited to members of the LDS church. “I kneel in prayer with the Muslims, too,” he said.