I really appreciate your kind help. Here are the answers your questions:

1) I can confirm that the modal form has no RETURN command in the LOAD or INIT events (nor does that command occur in the form's only other event, QUERYUNLOAD).

2) I have also checked and neither the form's baseclass nor any of its controls (or their baseclasses) contains a RETURN command.

3) from VFP help: "Note that only one READ EVENTS can be active at a time. If a READ EVENTS is in effect, any subsequent READ EVENTS commands have no effect." This has been my understanding and, at least until now, I have never concerned myself with an active READ EVENTS and subsequent modal forms. Is there some nuance here I should be aware of?

The runtime .EXE appears to be releasing the form "on its own". It seems that sometime during the controls' runtime, but not development environment, instantiation something is causing the form's releasing.

Here is what I am doing:

In the modal form's LOAD event thisform.BindControls is set to false

I pass a parameter object to the form. In the form's INIT a form object is created and the parameter object is assigned to it.

thisform.oParams = m.toParameterObj

Then the six textboxes are then assigned their control source, i.e.

thisform.txtLastName.ControlSource = "thisform.oParams.LastName"

Finally in INIT thisform.BindControls is set to true.

Do you observe anything inherently wrong with this approach?