DENNIS ROY
STONE- TRIBUTE TO A LIFE WELL LIVED
February 9, 1935- November 6, 2021
On November
12, 2021 family and friends gathered to pay tribute to a life well lived.
I first met
Dennis Stone when I began dating his oldest daughter Annette but I knew his
family much sooner. Doxey and June (Dennis’s
parents) lived at the corner of 12th St and Porter Ave. in Ogden, Utah
just a few blocks away from our home on 14th St. We all belonged to
the Ogden 7th Ward. His brother Roy was my brother Byron’s age and
Colleen (Dennis’s oldest sister (yet younger than him by 14 years) was my age
and we all attended the Old Mound Fort Jr High and then Ben Lomond High School.
When I started
dating Annette, Naomi, Annette’s mother was expecting Chad. Grandpa Phipps (Naomi’s father) was living with the family at
the time. I remember Dennis as a young,
handsome, athletic guy who loved basketball.
He could pretty much score at will and was very aggressive and competitive.
Their basketball court was in the back yard by their large garden. I was
invited to join the neighborhood game on occasion taking an elbow or two as he
took charge of the ball and the game. I could never beat him one on one and
rarely was I on the team that would beat the team he was on.
When the Stones gathered around the dinner table it was a large gathering. When Dennis took his turn with the prayer, it was always genuine, and heart felt. Dennis worked hard to provide for his large growing family. When not at work he spent a lot of time working in his large garden. Dennis was a family man who loved his wife and children. The Stone children were normal and had their spats, often Dennis found himself heading to the garden to escape the noise, one reason his garden was so well cared for. His love for sports found outlet in his church callings. He refereed stake basketball for years and was known to ejected from the game a Bishop and high council member or two. He marveled that otherwise good men could turn into something different on the court. He was still running the stake program into his 70’s. Dennis was a happy person and was known to sing or whistle often. He seemed to have a handle on keeping proper balance with work, church and family, succeeding in all three.
Dennis had a
good relationship with his heavenly father and lived to be worthy to receive
spiritual promptings to the blessing of his family.
Annette
remembers that her Junior High school was far away so her dad would drive her
and her friends to school on his way to work. One foggy, icy, winter day Dennis
had an urgent impression to stop the car. He slammed on the brakes which normally
would have thrown the car into a terrible out of control slide, this time however,
the car stopped as on a dime. Seconds later a speeding freight train roared
past them on the train tracks just in front of them! Had Dennis ignored this
prompting, he and all his passengers, including our cherished Annette, would
have been instantly killed. (This was before crossing rails and lights were
installed at all train crossings.)
At the
funeral, Bishop Case read a poem called “The Dash” by Linda Ellis – (which by
the way was also read at my father’s funeral)
“ I read of
a man who stood to speak at the funeral of a friend. He referred to the dates on the tombstone from
the beginning…to the end.
He noted
that first came the date of birth and spoke of the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all was the dash between those years. For that dash represents all the time they
spent alive on earth and now only those who loved them know what that little
line is worth.
For it matters
not how much we own, the cars…the house…the cash. What matters is how we live and love and how
we spend our dash.
So think
about this long and hard; are there things you’d like to change? For you never
know how much time is left that still can be rearranged.
To be less
quick to anger and show appreciation more and love the people in our lives like
we’ve never loved before.
If we treat each
other with respect and more often wear a smile…remembering that this special
dash might only last a little while.
So when your
eulogy is being read, with your life’s actions to rehash, would you be proud of
the things they say about how you lived your dash?”
Dennis Roy Stone lived his dash well! We pay tribute to a life well lived!
PS- We hope you’ll
take time to read his full obituary and experience again his funeral at-
https://www.myersmortuary.com/obituary/Dennis-Stone
Much Love-
The Grandparent Chronicles
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