Sherman Holgate

MISSOULA - Sherman Hale Holgate passed away at 3:20 a.m. Sunday, December. 14, 2008, after suffering for the past several years from Alzheimer’s and Myelodysplastic Syndrome, a bone marrow malfunction.





He was born in Arcadia, Utah, on November. 18, 1921, on his grandmother’s dining room table during a snowstorm. He was named Sharon at birth, but as he grew up and left the Uintah Basin, the name of Sharon for a man became a problem, so he went by Sherman.





He didn’t have a lot of formal education, but he was well educated in day-to-day working, caring, sharing and loving. He had a variety of jobs in his life, including trimming cows’ feet; shoeing horses; working in furniture stores; as a fireman on a train in Utah; raising grand champion black Angus cattle on his Red Rose Ranch; showing cows and horses at fairs, where he met and did some work with Roy Rogers; lawn service; and working at the stockyards in Idaho and Montana. He drove bus for Scouting and school field trips, and also drove the Salt Lake City trolley/streetcar and city bus. he was also a commercial bus driver for Trailways and Greyhound and charter bus driver for Lewis Bros. Stages, where he met his wife Marilyn, her mother Ranae Harris and her aunt Lois Bartlett. As a charter driver, he also met Liberace and Wayne Newton.





Some other interesting things about him: He was the one that named his sister Betty. Many people said he looked and sounded like Chuck Connors. He was a rodeo clown for 10 years and a baseball pitcher, and he stopped a robbery in Grand Junction, Colo. He loved animals and was excellent at training them. He played three musical instruments during his lifetime. The first was trumpet, until he got hit in the mouth with a baseball. Next, he played drums in a family band, and then he played the harmonica.





As a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he held many positions, including a member of the LDS Bishopric in Arcadia, Utah; scoutmaster; stake missionary; and “Traveling Missionary,” a nickname given to him while he was a bus driver. He worked as packaging supervisor at the LDS Bishop’s Storehouse, and worked on the Missoula stake LDS ranch. For several years, he helped with the missionary dinner calendar, to make sure the missionaries were fed a good meal each day.





Sherm had a wonderful sense of humor, a quick wit, the gift of finding beauty in everything and teaching that to others, and he was always thanking people for anything and everything they did. He had a trick of waving his hat at people by wiggling the top of his head, and he had lot of fun doing his hat trick on Halloween while sitting down by Penney’s and watching the kids trick-or-treating in the mall.





He was preceded in death by his parents, Aroet Hale and Ora Amelia Nielson Holgate; his first wife, Lorna Jenkins; and two of their seven children, Delores Ann and Florence Murial.





Surviving him are Marilyn, his wife for the past 18 years; her brother, Alan and his wife Becky of Elk Grove, Calif., and their sons Jason and Justin Harris of Mesa, Ariz.; Sherm’s children and their spouses, Gloria and Dennis Manning of Roosevelt, Utah, Ranae and Scott Thornton of Centerville, Utah, Marilyn and Ron Goodrich of West Valley City, Utah, Janet and Clair Simmons of Martinsville, Ind., and Ralph and Lynne Holgate of West Jordan, Utah. Sherm leaves behind 29 grandchildren, 47 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild. Also surviving Sherm is his sister, Betty Lee Evans and her husband Chad of Roosevelt, Utah; and many nieces and nephews.





Visitation will be 9:30-10:50 a.m. Saturday, December. 20, in the Relief Society Room at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 3026 South Ave. W. Funeral services will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday at the South Avenue LDS Chapel, with Br. Mel Ewing conducting the services. A reception will follow immediately after the services. Burial will be at 2 p.m. at Sunset Memorial Cemetery, 7405 Mullan Road, Missoula.






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