"Grief never ends...but it changes. It is a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith...it is the price of love."
Some little stories for remembrance:
My dad came from a good family, he was educated and to our knowledge he was the first one in our family line to receive a college degree that he earned at the University of Oregon. He married well to a marvelous woman from another good family that was the love of his life. Together they raised 3 children and eventually they got 3 grandchildren. He had a fantastic professional career working for the US Army Corps of Engineers and later with the Management staff of US Forest Service before retiring.
When he was in his teens, he had a love of flying airplanes and worked at the Springfield Oregon airport washing planes and other odd jobs. As payment the airport operators let him fly some of the planes. He and his dad were involved with the Civil Air Patrol for a time. Later when I came along my mother would keep an eye out for dad flying his plane over the house. She would take me out so that I could wave at him as he buzzed the house. That’s probably why I still go out and look at low flying planes passing over although I don’t wave with all of my fingers anymore.
His wife Eileen chose to be a home maker who always created a wonderful home for us and they both loved to entertain. Mom was quite literally the life of the party, and we had lots of gatherings.
Both of my parents had a soft spot for stray animals. Cats, dogs and even people it seemed. My dad really liked dogs but he didn’t care too much for cats. It didn’t matter because the cats liked him anyway, so he at least tolerated them until he eventually mellowed out to them.
From about 1963 for about 7 years we lived on a small farm in a wonderful rural area about 20 miles east of Eugene Oregon. We had them all; cows, horses, pigs, chickens, rabbits, ducks and geese. It was a great place for kids to grow up. Everyone seemed to get along with their neighbors and we had many friends. We were involved in school sports, the Boy Scouts, the Grange and many local events along with hiking, fishing and hunting.
My mother often reminded me that most kids didn’t have it as good as we did. Looking back, she was right, we were very fortunate with the lives we had back then.
Over the years we did a lot of camping with old canvas tents, to a truck and camper and later in my parent’s motor homes. My dad’s parents loved to go along with us, and we all had some great times.
My dad was the Master of Lowell Grange in Lowell Oregon, number 745 way back in 1969. The patrons were thrilled with him as he was a good leader and a convincing speaker. They were all very sorry to see him leave when we moved to Bend Oregon in 1970 for a big promotion in Deschutes National Forest.
When working for the Corps of Engineers back in the late 50’s and 60’s dad worked on many high-profile Federal Projects inspecting construction contractor’s work, reporting and related activities. He really liked his work although some of those jobs took him out of town for usually the entire week and sometimes for even a month or two. It was tough on the home life, but we did ok. My dad’s parents kept a close eye on us.
Dad said that during the Bay of Pigs Invasion they were in lock down in a diversion tunnel they were constructing to redirect a river while the dam was being built. Those were long days not knowing what was going on with the real world or if his family was safe.
The hydro-electric projects or, construction of the large dams and reservoirs generating electric power were in Oregon or Washington and include: Wynoochie, Fall Creek, Cougar, Cascadia, Foster, Blue River, Green Peter, Hillscreek, Applegate, Elk Creek and a few others I can’t recall.
He also worked on supplemental projects at Bonneville, Cottage Grove, Detroit, Doreena and Fern Ridge.
Some of the many other Federal projects were at Butte Creek, Thomas Creek, the Sixes River, Yaquina Bay, Fairbanks Alaska and Great Falls Montana.
He eventually left the Corps of Engineers in the late 60’s for the Forest Service. He worked on the Willamette, Deschutes, Wynema, Ochoco, Siskiyou, Snoqualmie, Mount Baker, Gifford Pinchot and the Olympic National Forests. Dad became the head of Geo Technical Services on the Olympic and oversaw quite a number of skilled professionals and technicians that had little to do with timber. I’m not 100% sure but I believe it was mainly construction of forest roads and sourcing the mineral resources for their construction. The mineral resources came from numerous rock pits. Dad dearly loved to be present when a rock pit was being blasted. One of the reasons he was on-hand was to inspect the materials as it was possible for an incompetent contractor to pulverize the rock to the point of being unusable.
I remember him telling a story about some idiot loggers in Forks harassing him and his crew during dinner at the local restaurant. The loggers knew that dad and his people were Forest Service personnel so they must be the ones that close down the forests and restrict logging when the humidity drops. There was no way to explain to those idiots that dad and his crew were the ones who designed the landscape and provided oversight for the construction of the forest roads so those turkeys could haul out the logs from the government timber sales.
A tradition passed down from my dad through his dad and probably from my great granddad way back in the early 1900’s was how to cuss the traffic. My dad was very good at it and the tradition seems to have been passed onto his grandchildren.
I really liked my dad as a person. He was my dad, but he was also a wealth of knowledge, and he was very helpful to me with my career. He knew how to manage his people at work and offered insight into why things happened caused by upper management intelligent or otherwise.
Dad never complained, I guess he never saw the use of it. He was always positive, offered advice and insight if requested. As his time drew near, he had trouble speaking so I listened very closely to the few words that he offered. His last word to me was, “Nice day.” I miss him.
It got quiet, Dad went to sit down, and the Mills and Mills director explained to the guests that this part of the celebration had concluded, and Grandpa Dennis will be loaded up in the hurst and the remainder of the ceremony will be a gravesite visit. He said people can walk over or drive their cars. So, from about 1:30-2 was the gravesite visit.
I walked over there and saw they had prepared a spot next to Grammie. They took the gravestone out of the ground and had everything sitting next to it. The lowering device was above the hole with the Mills and Mills workers standing nearby. Everyone got situated and the third part of the service began. I sat there remembering all the great times we had with Grandpa over the years. It was sad sitting there. The boys all got up when the hurst arrived and helped as pallbearers, moving him from the hurst to the device above the hole. Champlain Matthew D. March said a few words and then Grandpa was lowered into his final resting place next to his beloved wife. I am glad Grammie now has company in this lonely place. I will miss them both dearly.
We thanked everyone for coming and walked back towards the building. We stopped and said hi to our great-grandparents, Arnold and Clora, for a few minutes. They've been gone since the early 1990's. We continued to the building. We spent the next half hour chatting with people and putting everything away that we had on display for Grandpa. He sure lived an interesting life.
Everyone who was left helped me put the boxes into the Escape. I asked Mom and Dad what we were going to do next, and Mom said we should find a place to get some food. We agreed on The Brick off of Trosper since that wasn't that far away from where we were. Dad stayed behind to deal with Tracy and Kevin, who in my eyes, were disappointing at their father's funeral. I know everyone grieves differently but they could have been respectful about it. We got to the restaurant, ordered drinks and food, Dad arrived, we ate, paid the bill and went home.
I ended up falling asleep because the emotional toll it took on me. I woke up after a two-hour nap, watched the Penguins beat the Capitals to end a 7-game losing streak. I got cleaned up and ready for bed. We had two more days until the weekend again. I absolutely hate losing people. This is the worst thing we have to deal with as people, losing loved ones, and having to cope with them not being here with us anymore.
Dennis Arnold Larson, 87, passed away in his sleep during the early hours of October 18, 2022, in Lacey, Washington. He was born on August 15, 1935, to parents Arnold and Clora (Farris) Larson in Hood River, Oregon. He was their only child.
The first 10 years of his life were rough, but his parents did everything they could and took any job that was available to keep their little family going. He remembers living in a tent near the railroad while his parents worked in the small logging town of Valsetz. That area received over 200 inches of rain a year and his mother was devastated when everything was wet, moldy and eventually rotted the tent away. Soon, his father built a more stable “homestead” to keep his family warm and dry. Dennis spent most of his childhood there and went to grade school from first through half of fifth grade.
After WWII ended, they moved to Westport, Washington, where his father took a job working in the fish canneries. It was pretty good pay for those times. Dennis was enrolled in the Ocosta school district where he attended the rest of his fifth-grade year through seventh. His uncle and father co-owned and operated an auto repair shop in town. Arnold eventually bought it outright and called it Larson’s Garage. He then sold it in 1948 and moved his family to Springfield, Oregon.
Dennis attended Springfield High School and worked part-time as a bean picker, became a licensed pilot and flew small planes out of McKenzie Airfield and working in the woods as a choker setter and fire watch patrol. During his senior year of high school, he met his future wife, Eileen at the Tork Club/Midway Roller Rink in Glenwood, Oregon. He graduated high school in 1953.
He spent a lot of time with Eileen and worked to save money and enrolled at the University of Oregon. He took classes and worked. It took him a while to finish his degree because he had to take some time off to earn money to continue. He never had to spend time in the military during the draft because the government never notified him.
He married Eileen on April 12, 1956, and had three children, Corey, Kevin and Tracy in a span of five years. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a bachelor’s degree in geology in 1960. His family was very proud of him and looked forward to what the future held. He worked at a service station and a plywood plant to keep up with bills and living expenses for the time being while living in Eugene.
He then got a job with the Corps of Engineers where he worked on dams. At that time, he was a temporary trainee for about 3-4 years where he learned valuable skills and gained a lot of experience. He worked as a geologist in construction where they found possible sites for quarries, camps and water wells. He worked on missile sites and control centers in Montana (he remembers it being extremely cold) and he worked on Wynoochie Dam in Montesano, Washington, where he was the foundation engineer.
They moved to a small farm in Dexter, Oregon. He and his family were involved with Boy Scouts, hunting, raising farm animals and enjoying life in that small farming community. Dennis traveled a lot for work during that time in Dexter.
A new job with the Forest Service in 1971 took them to Bend, Oregon. With that job, he also did a lot of traveling, mostly in the Pacific Northwest. He said Bend was his favorite place to live and the greatest thing about it was the 300 days of sunshine. The area was surrounded by lakes, forests and camping opportunities. He made many memories with his family and friends while living there.
In the late 1970’s, he and his family moved to Rainier, Washington, about 20 miles outside of Olympia for a work promotion with the Olympic National Forest. It took forever to find a home and while looking they had to live in a hotel for a couple months. Once they found a house, they adapted to the little town right away. Their kids enjoyed small town life and were successful in sports, clubs and making lifelong friendships. From 1975 to 1991, Dennis worked all over Washington State. He worked on state land; had many people working with and for him such as drillers, engineers, surveyors, geologists, labs and timber personnel. They were responsible for producing information for roads, logging and recreation, areas for harvesting trees and the prevention of landslides and erosion.
He retired on April 30, 1994, and said it was the best possible time because he wanted to spend time with his wife, parents, children and grandchildren, taking care of rental properties, his own property and work on his projects and hobbies. He enjoyed reading the newspaper, western novels and historic biographies, corresponding with friends and family through emails, card parties and working on Sudoku’s. He kept copious amounts of notes and documented everything. He and Eileen loved to go antiquing and their house literally looked like an antique store. They added to it every chance they got.
He loved getting together with family on birthdays and holidays, traveling with Eileen, celebrating anniversaries, taking care of their animals throughout the years, watching his grandchildren grow up and watching many basketball, fastpitch and track events at the local high school. Dennis was very busy during retirement and he and Eileen put thousands of miles on their truck, Whitney.
Around 2013, they both started slowing down a bit and it kept them homebound. Dennis would take care of the chores, do the grocery shopping and took care of Eileen as her health declined. During this time, they went to a lot of doctor’s appointments, kept up with birthdays, holidays and visits with the family, read books and watched a lot of television. There was one thing about Dennis that I always admired; you never heard him complain about anything. He saw it needed to be done and just did it.
Sadly, his wife of 62 years passed away on August 24, 2018, and he was heartbroken. I can’t imagine losing someone you’ve been with for that long suddenly isn’t there anymore. He learned to navigate what his life was going to be like without her, with the love and support of his children and grandchildren.
For the next four years, he lived in his house while Corey helped him with chores, taking care of bills, doctor’s appointments and the occasional visit to Joe’s place in Bucoda. Soon, his life took a turn with his own health problems, and we had to get him to a facility that tended to him around the clock. It wasn’t ideal but at least we knew he was going to be taken care of. We visited him often, celebrated his birthdays, decorated his room with various holiday items and made sure he was comfortable. His case manager told us that everyone loved Dennis and enjoyed talking to him. She said he had the best stories.
Life will never be the same without him and his grandpa quirkiness. Like Grammie, we are going to have to learn to carry on their legacy as we navigate our own life. Grandpa once told me, when we were working on documenting his life many years ago, that “it ain’t over until it’s over.”
Rest in peace Grandpa Dennis, we love and will miss you.
He is survived by his sons, Corey (Sue) Larson and Kevin (Karla) Larson, his daughter Tracy Larson and his three grandchildren, Valerie Larson, Douglas Larson and Erika Larson.
Next Adventure: My Four-Day Birthday Weekend
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