Dean Frank McRae

    Surrounded in his home by his family and the love of his life, Dean Franklin “Frank” McRae’s, final stop on the highway of life was a release from the irreparable mechanical problems of cancer that disabled his big rig which had carried him down the highways he’d traveled throughout his life on March 23, 2015.
    Frank began rolling down the highway of his life on April 10, 1937 at the Sidney, Montana hospital as the fourth of seven children born to Glenn Scott McRae and Ellen Amanda Hayward. Life on the McRae ranch was where Frank learned his love of animals and gardening along with his siblings Hellen, Gerald, Scotty, Donna, Marilyn and Gordon.
    Frank took to driving the highway of life on his own at the bright young age of 15 after completing the eighth grade in the one room school house at Leland’s which was located not far from the family ranch in North Dakota. Frank geared down on the low side working hard on neighboring ranches as a ranch hand, working at the local gas station or out in the oilfields of Montana near the town of Sidney where he was born.
    When the work ran out or he was needed he would return to the family ranch in North Dakota.  He served his country in the United States Army during a time of peace in his early twenties.
    Frank married Patricia Boyer which shifted his big rig into gear on the high-side of life after the birth of his first four children. A change in life took Frank down a different highway and he found the love of his life Barbara J. Cundiff at the Triangle Night Club.  The majority of their dating was spent spinning around a dance floor. Frank and Barb’s first date was a picnic on a very scenic overlook at the natural corrals.
    After two years of dating Frank married Barbara in the Methodist Church located in Sidney, Montana. The biggest adventure on the highway of Frank’s life began with the joining of his four children Collette, Francis, Jim, and Gene with Barbara’s four children John, Richard, George, and Roberta.
    Frank and Barb somehow made a new marriage with eight children, living in a two-bedroom apartment, work.  While he worked at Theissen’s ranch Frank and Barb added an additional child, Glenn and a few years later, Nichole to the mix.
     The best load he hauled in his life was that of providing for his family working on the Thiessen’s ranch, the Alaskan Pipeline, driving truck over the road for over 40 years, as well as in the oilfields of Montana, North Dakota and the Uintah Basin.
In 1994 he was baptized by his son Glenn McRae and confirmed as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by his son John Flynn.
    After he retired he continued to roll on by playing countless dice games and rounds of cards with family and friends. No one ever visited him in the living-room, it was always around the kitchen table playing a game or telling stories of the many travels and adventures that he had taken on the highways and byways he’d traveled in his life.
    When he parked the big rig he had driven for 77 years on the highway of life at home-base to drive the highways of heaven, he rejoined his parents Glenn and Ellen McRae, his siblings Hellen, Gerald, and Scotty and his grand-son Cassidy Lundstad who all preceded him.
    He is survived by his spouse Barbara, siblings Donna Lewis, Marylin Lingle, and Gordon McRae, also his 10 children and their spouses, Collette Olsen (Kurt), Francis McRae (Terri), John Flynn (Pamela), Jim McRae (Brenda), Richard Flynn (Lisa), George Flynn (Rachel), Berta Walter (Bruce), Gene McRae, Glenn McRae (Angel), and Nichole Potter (Phillip), 46 grand-children, and 38 great-grand-children. He has gone on to prepare a place for them to join him when their run on the highway life, here on earth, is through.
    Funeral services will be held on Saturday, March 28, 2015, at 11:00 a.m. at the Roosevelt East LDS Stake Center.  There will be a viewing at the Hullinger Mortuary on Friday from 6-8 p.m. and from 10-10:45 a.m. Saturday at the church.  Military Honors will be presented by the Roosevelt American Legion and the Utah Honor Guard.
    He will be cremated after the services and his cremated remains scattered in Montana at a later date.