Justus Ray Jorgensen, age 88, passed peacefully on December 5, 2022.
Dad was the son of James Lester and Adela Caroline Seely Jorgensen and is a native of Castle Dale, Utah. He grew up loving his daddy and spent many years riding a horse behind his daddy’s big, broad shoulders on the mountains herding sheep. He learned to be self-reliant at a young age riding a horse, packing up a sheep camp and leading a pack-string of mules for hauling all their camp and supplies up to the summer mountains and onto the desert winter ranges.
He enjoyed the farming lifestyle and never wanted to leave the ranch. Dad enjoyed tending water morning and night and raised feed for the sheep. With his brothers, he continued his family’s legacy working the sheep and cattle ranches his father James Lester and grandfather John Smith Jorgensen founded on the Rock Canyon Wash down near the old ghost town of Wilsonville, Utah. Later in his life, he transitioned into the cattle business. He learned how to work the old-fashioned way with his hands and the sweat of his brow. He dug miles of ditches with a shovel and pitch-forked mountains of hay off the back of a wagon. He has seen the technology in farming change from pitchfork hay by hand to the modern conveniences of hydrologic machinery that moves one-ton bales with the control of a single button.
Dad served his country in the United States Army. He served as a lineman communication specialist in Germany climbing poles and dismantling telephone wires. He always bragged about how fast he could climb those poles. While on his military leave, he traveled across Europe. One of his favorite adventures while on army leave, he enjoyed swimming across the Rhine River just like his daddy had done in World War I. Ray received an honorable discharge from the United States Army.
Ray married his sweetheart Carolyn Cook Jorgensen of West Jordan, Utah in the Salt Lake LDS Temple on August 7, 1963.
Dad was a faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in which he served in a variety of callings. One of his favorite callings was teaching the nursery children. He loved to march around the room singing and bouncing the crying little babies. Mom and Dad served a welfare mission for five years at the church cannery where they enjoyed helping church members fill their food storage pantries.
Dad loved growing his garden. It was always stuffed full of potatoes, corn, tomatoes and beans. He spent many hours in the fall preserving the food with his sweetheart. He enjoyed playing checkers, writing stories, creating poetry, riding horses, telling tall tales about the mica on the farm hills or the dragonflies in the farm pond.
He is survived by his seven children, Miriam, (Charley) Chadwick of Stockton, Utah, Patricia (Erik) Gotberg of Lehi, Utah, Janna (Baron) Fidler of Draper, Utah, Dixie (Ken) Bradshaw of Washington, Utah, Margaret (Philip) Powley of South Jordan, Utah, Justus (Tiffany) Jorgensen of Castle Dale, Utah, Jaren (Holly) Jorgensen of Kemmerer, Wyoming; 24 grandchildren and eight great-granddaughters.
Dad is preceded in death by his beloved Carolyn; parents, James Lester and Adela Caroline Seely Jorgensen; brothers, John Lester Jorgensen, Joseph Carlton Jorgensen, Allen Gale Jorgensen, Theron Don Jorgensen; sister, Shirley Lena Jorgensen Christensen; and grandchild, Philly Powley.
Funeral service, Saturday, December 10, 2022, 12:00 noon, Castle Dale Stake Center where the family will receive friends beginning at 10:30 a.m. Interment will follow the service in the Castle Dale City Cemetery. Arrangements entrusted to Mitchell Funeral Home of Price and Huntington where friends are always welcome daily and may share memories of Ray online at www.mitchellfuneralhome.net.