Richard F Stevenson

Richard (Rick) Farrell Stevenson was born August 18, 1947 in Los Angles, California to Richard Carey Stevenson and Ruth Crouch Stevenson. He was the first of five brothers. Following Rick was his brother Gary who was four years younger and has already preceded him in death. Then came John, David and finally Russell. Both of his parents were morticians, however, John was the only son that decided to follow in their profession. When Rick was about 6 months old, just old enough to crawl, he was on his parent’s king size bed. While on the bed, he crawled over to the edge which was near the window, pushed on the window screen, and fell out the second story window. Despite landing on his head in the bushes, and narrowly missing the corner of a brick, he was not seriously injured. After his parents finished with mortuary school, they moved back to Utah and started a mortuary in Bingham Canyon. When Kennecott copper decided that it needed more land, they moved their mortuary to West Jordan.
Rick attended junior high in West Jordan and high school at Bingham in Copperton. His dad, who was post master of West Jordan, was always trying to find him some kind of job. Some of the jobs he had were working at a mink ranch, a grocery store, as a life guard, and as chemist at the sugar factory. All of these jobs happened before he went on his mission.
He met his wife Pamela when he was 16 and she was 15. Normally Rick and Pam never would have met in a million years. He went to Bingham High School and she attended Skyline High School. However, one of the jobs that his father helped him get was being a life guard at a small pool in a trailer court in West Jordan. The trailer court was owned by a man who lived in Holladay. His son, Tom was attending Skyline High and was also dating Pam’s twin sister Pat. At that time Rick decided to take up Aikido, a martial arts class. After taking several lessons, he was told that if he could bring someone else in to take lessons also, he could get a discount off of his lessons. He met Tom Brimhall at the pool, and asked Tom about coming with him to the Aikido lessons. There was only one catch, Tom didn’t have a car. That meant that every Saturday when they had a lesson, Rick had to drive to Holladay to pick him up and then to down town Salt Lake. At one lesson, Tom asked Rick if he could bring his girlfriend (Pat) to the next lesson and Rick told him that was okay. However, immediately after the lesson, Pat told them both that Aikido was not her thing. A couple of lessons later and Rick getting tired of all the roundtrip driving with Tom, Rick decided to stop picking him up for lessons, when Tom said “would you like to meet Pat’s twin sister Pam?” Tom mentioned this to Rick because every time Tom went to see Pat, Pam had to tag along, because that’s what twins do. Tom thought that the only way he was going to get some alone time with Pat was to get Pam a boyfriend. So Rick agreed and on June 2nd, 1963, he met Pam on her front porch after MIA. The next day and for a whole week, Tom and Rick came to Pam and Pat’s house. They did something different every day, such as hiking, bowling, horseback riding, and movies.
Rick and Pam dated until Rick got his mission call to the Southern States Mission when he was 19. After Pam and Pat graduated from high school, they went to BYU. When Rick returned from his mission, he and Pam wanted to get married. At the same time Pat had found someone at BYU that she wanted to marry. Pam and Pat’s dad didn’t want to pay for two weddings, so they had a double wedding and a double wedding reception.
This was during the Vietnam War. Rick had a low draft number so he decided to join the Utah National Guard to avoid being drafted. He was in the Special Forces as a Green Beret. He learned how to be a radio operator and to jump out of every kind of airplane or helicopter. He was almost killed 4 times while jumping.
Rick earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah in 1981.
Rick and Pam have 6 children, Richard R, Jennifer, Heather, Kirk, Gregory, and Steffany. They both started working at the post office in 1976. They both worked for 37 years.
They started a video store while they worked at the post office. They had their video store for 10 years.
Rick had a love of scouting. He was the district leader for the explorer scouts. He took the whole family for a week to Philmont, New Mexico, where each member of the family had a different adventure.
Rick worked in the Jordan River Temple for many years as a veil worker until it closed for renovation. Shortly after, he was diagnosed with the beginnings of Alzheimer’s which finally took his life on October 17, 2019.
Rick is survived by his wife Pamela, his 6 children and their spouses, 24 grandchildren and 1 great grandchild.
Funeral services will be held at 1 p.m., Saturday October 26, 2019 at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Riverton 7th Ward Chapel, 12359 South Dansie Way (1856 West). There will be a viewing on Friday evening from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Broomhead Funeral Home, 12590 South 2200 West, Riverton and at the church on Saturday prior to the funeral from 11:30-12:30. Interment will be in the West Jordan Cemetery.