My Grandpa's Funeral

Roger Henry Plothow

Nov. 21, 1934-May 26, 2020

Memorial Day 2020 I got a text message from my mom. She told me that Grandpa wasn't doing well and that I should talk to Dad about getting his number if I wanted to say goodbye. Grandpa Plothow was in the hospital and his kidneys were failing. He only had a couple days left. I talked to Dad and asked for his number. Then I was able to give Grandpa a call. He answered the phone. He was sad. He told me that he was not doing well. That he was in lots of pain. I told him that I was so, so sorry. I told him that I loved him and that he was such a good Grandpa to me. I asked if I could shared with him some of my childhood memories and he said yes of course. I reminded him about getting a box of donuts each Saturday morning with a gallon of chocolate milk that he would leave on our doorstep. This made him laugh and he said that we only got 11 because the 12th donut he ate on the drive home from the bakery. He only bought the best donuts from a proper bakery. I told him about how my brothers and I would run across the street and play in his apple trees. We swam in his ditch when it filled up with water, I remember him taking us downstairs to his deep freeze and we could choose any ice cream that we wanted. I reminded him how Dad and I came to him when I was 17 and he helped us write a grant and eventually we did receive funding to start Bedtime Stories and that this program is still running today at the state prison. We laughed together, we prayed together and at the end he said, Brooke I want you to do somethings for me. I told him that I would. He said, "Love your husband, and love your children. Teach them the gospel. Be righteous and go to the temple as often as you can." I promised him that I would. He told me that he loved me and my Dad and our family very much. I told him that we all loved him very much. Then we ended. It will be a conversation that I will remember all my life. I hope to do the things that he asked me to do. I love you Grandpa -  until we meet again.

Today was his funeral. It was happy and it was sad. Lots of emotions... lots.

Grandpa Swimming as a child in Indiana.

My Dad and his siblings.

My Dad and his siblings - Dad is in the green shirt.

Grandpa Plothow

Grandpa and his siblings.

Grandma Lenora, my dad and siblings.

Grandpa.

Grandpa and Grandma Plothow

Both my grandparents. Grandma and Grandpa Plothow and Grandma and Grandpa Jensen. These are the four grandparents that I knew and loved growing up. Grandpa was the last of them to pass on. All four are now on the other side. Miss them all. This photo is taken at my brother Lyndon's baptism in Provo, Utah when he was eight years old.

Grandpa with my son Gregory at his Baptism.

Me and my siblings with our parents at Grandpa's funeral.

Mom and Dad.

Dr. Roger Henry Plothow – our dad, grandfather and great grandfather -- of American Fork, Utah died Tuesday, May 26, 2020 in Provo, Utah of causes incident to age. He was

85.

 

     

He was born in Peru, Indiana on Nov. 21, 1934 to Anthony Fredrick “Fritz” Jr. and Wilma Lavon Plothow, the second of six siblings. His parents hadn’t had the opportunity for much formal education, so they saw to it that dad and his siblings all took schooling seriously and went to college. He attended area schools and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Purdue University. He later moved his young family with five children to Utah, where he earned a doctorate in education from Brigham Young University in 1972, at which point he began a new career.

He married Lenora Dean Damron – mom, grandma and great grandma – in 1957 in Gilead, Indiana. Their marriage was later solemnized in the Salt Lake City temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Lenora died in 2007. He married Mary Gail Jones Worsley in 2009 in the Mount Timpanogos temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He spent his life as an educator and in the service of his family and church. He was a high school teacher, guidance counselor and administrator before becoming Indiana director of the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, then a division of the United States Department of Agriculture, from 1966 to 1968. He was assistant to the campus dean at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Campus for two years. 

After completing his Ed.D., he spent the rest of his career serving in a number of positions at what is now Utah Valley University, including Director of Institutional Development and Director of Environmental Studies from 1994 until his retirement in 1998. He was the longtime director of the evening school and continuing education at Utah Technical College at Provo and Utah Valley State College. He was an expert grant writer and ran his own business as a researcher and consultant from 1987 to 2012.

He served three times as branch president or bishop for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; twice in Indiana and once in Utah. He and Lenora served a mission for the church in the New York Rochester Mission from 2004 to 2006. He served as a captain in the Indiana National Guard.

Dad and Mary Gail loved serving together, volunteering time at the Crandall Printing Museum, the Family History Center, and their Ward Empty Nesters. They also enjoyed combining their large and growing family of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, often supporting their various activities and life achievements. They considered each one like their own, and Dad was happiest when surrounded by his large posterity. He was the world’s best grandpa. He was the only grandfather many of Mary Gail’s grandchildren ever knew, and they loved him.

He was famously optimistic. He was one of the few BYU fans who not only didn’t leave the stadium during the 1980 Holiday Bowl after BYU fell behind by 20 points with four minutes left, he even plotted the comeback. A quick touchdown. A blocked punt. Another touchdown. A recovered onside kick. A Hail Mary from one Catholic (Jim McMahon) to another (Clay Brown). BYU won, 46-45, in a game referred to as the “Miracle Bowl” ever since.

He insisted that his young family got to travel. They accompanied him to General Conference, driving from Indiana to Salt Lake City pulling a borrowed pop-up tent trailer, or visiting the Oregon coast and sleeping in a tent. He loved camp-cooking, particularly making his Dutch oven cobbler. He quietly sneaked nine-year-old Roger Dean into the White House when he was there for a meeting. 

He loved to travel, visiting many places in North America, Israel and Europe. He loved Utah. When mom was Director for the Center of Lifelong Learning at what is now Utah Valley University, Dad would often accompany groups from the center on their field trips throughout the state, serving as their informal tour guide. He was the consummate road-trip planner, getting each arrival down to the minute before the Internet did it for us. Lunches and snacks would be prepared and in the cooler. Within 15 minutes of leaving the driveway, he’d ask for a can of orange juice.

He became famous as the pitcher for the ward’s slow-pitch softball team. His high lobs were against the rules, but he was rarely called on it. His team honored him as Most Valuable Player one season, at least in part to suggest that maybe his body hadn’t kept pace with his innate ability. He had once played semi-pro fast-pitch softball and often called on Roger or Phillip to join him in the yard for a catch. 

He was tender-hearted and forgiving, almost to a fault. He often said he would cry at ribbon cuttings. As bishop, he was reluctant to begin excommunication proceedings against any member of his ward, even when church rules clearly called for it. The story – probably at least partially apocryphal – goes that he was hired to direct the Indiana Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, then a division of the USDA, because he was a Mormon and a Democrat (at a time when Indiana still had Democrats and LBJ was in the White House), and the prior director had been caught misbehaving. He was 31 at the time. 

His harshest word for bad drivers was “dumb-dumb.” He saved his most withering criticism – “stupe” – for BYU athletes who didn’t perform up to par. He kept his cars forever, developing a deep and abiding relationship with each. He was particularly fond of a brown Chevy Impala in the early 60s and would pat its dashboard with affection.

As a bishop in Indianapolis, he was required to increase the balance in the ward’s welfare budget. Instead of asking the members to pay more, he launched fund-raising projects that included renting some farm acreage and growing and selling corn, having ward members conduct food-tasting tests and donating the proceeds, and getting members hired to usher at the Indianapolis 500 (when it was still held on Monday). 

He wanted his children to work. One day he read in the Daily Herald that a farmer near Utah Lake was looking for a helper to work every afternoon for a couple of hours. He showed up on the farmer’s doorstep with Roger and Phillip in tow, convincing him to hire the two of them. Roger got 50 cents an hour and Phillip got 40 cents to spread straw for the cows and do other mundane chores, including helping out during the de-horning and castration project. 

He was a legendary storyteller – legendary in part because most of his stories grew longer and more amazing with each telling. He would often segue from one story to another before the listeners knew what had happened. He never met a stranger. 

He once went back to the entrance of a drive-in movie to chew out the attendant who had assured him the movie being shown was appropriate for children. Within 10 minutes he determined otherwise. He didn’t suffer fools or embrace ignorance or bigotry. And his capacity to forgive was Biblical. He grew more politically conservative in later life, but he often referred to himself as a “Harry Truman Democrat.” He was chairman of the Utah County Democratic Part in the 1970s when the term Mormon and Democrat could not be used in the same sentence. 

He read books about history and people. He loved John Wayne movies. He never gave up on his children. He was known widely in Utah, where mention of his name would often launch a story about something nice he’d done. He probably could have been a college president if he’d been willing to move his family again. He and Lenora had the same Zenith black and white television into the early 80s, which stood next to a red hard-wired AT&T dial phone well after everyone had gone push-button. 

In all the stories about dad’s storytelling, love of food, kindness and commitment to family and church, what is often lost is how smart he was. Yes, he famously struggled with a doctorate-level statistics course, happily taking a B- and moving on. But he knew chemistry, geology, geography, biology, history, agriculture, human nature, and much more. His intellect was masked by his humility, because he would often ask advice from nearly anyone. But he was an intellect in his own right. 

He will be missed, never forgotten.