Obituary: HUMPHREY, ROSWELL MARLIN

Roswell Marlin Humphrey 1926 ~ 2011Roswell Marlin Humphrey passed away November 3, 2011. Born April 27, 1926 in Salt Lake City, UT to Isaac Bailey and Twila Heiner Humphrey, he married his beloved wife, Rowene Kerr in the Salt Lake Temple on August 4, 1961. Marlin attended Hawthorne Elementary, Irving Junior High, South High, and the University of Utah before enlisting in the Navy's V-12 civil engineering program in 1943. After studying at Iowa State--Ames and graduating with a BS in civil engineering at Case Tech in Cleveland, OH, he returned to Utah but remained in the Navy Reserve. Marlin was employed in the US Bureau of Land Management for five years, headquartered in Salt Lake, working in eight different western states, but during the Korean War he returned to active naval duty for two years in Yokosuka, Japan. Upon returning home, he worked for 27 years as a civil engineer for the Bureau of Reclamation on the Weber Basin Project, the Central Utah Project, and other federal projects. Meanwhile, after having hunting all over for the perfect mate, he found his beloved future wife, Rowene, living just two blocks away from his boyhood home. After retiring from the Bureau of Reclamation, Marlin spent the last sixteen years of his professional life working for Salt Lake County's Public Works. Marlin was an active member of the LDS Church, serving in several positions including ten years in Sunday school presidencies, sixteen years as membership or ward clerk and four years as Elders Quorum president, where his main task was to get ward members visit to the stake orchard to pick fruit. Marlin loved sports, although he was, in his own words, "a better watcher than a player." He was a voracious reader of both fiction and non-fiction, but perhaps most memorably he loved to tell jokes, most recently to his many friends at the South Towne Ranch senior living community. Marlin was preceded in death by his parents, his wife, and one brother, Ronald, and is survived by his brother, Donald (Mary Jane), Lincoln, NE; sisters, Darlene Anderson, Tacoma, WA, Gerry Smith, and Twila May (Sam) Isaacson--both Salt Lake City, UT--son Daniel, Bryan, TX; daughter Wendy Caldwell, Murray, UT; three grand children; two great grand children; and numerous nieces and nephews. Viewing will be Tues, Nov. 8, at 1p.m., funeral follows at 2p.m., both at Mountain View Memorial, 3115 E 7800S, Cottonwood Heights, UT.