Floyd Raymond Otto

Floyd was born at Cedar Falls, Iowa on June 24, 1929. He had two sisters and one brother and lived on a small farm. His dad was a trucker. He went to a one room country school with one teacher. To hear him tell it, he had to walk to school uphill in the snow both ways. His family moved to Minnesota when he was sixteen to a big farm, but Floyd hated school and dropped out in the eleventh grade. He hated English and History, but was a math geek. He did go back to school and graduated, because he missed sports and girls. Floyd and his brother both enlisted at the same time but got shipped different directions. He enlisted February 1951 and was Honorably Discharged in December 1953. Floyd was a cook in the army and loved it. One time while stationed in Iceland, a certain 5-star General was flying from the Europe and needed to make an emergency landing, so Floyd got to cook for the big boys. This big boy was named General Ike. Floyd got married November 1, 1955 to Alice Halligan. Randy was born 13 months later. When Randy was 10 weeks old Floyd and Alice moved to California and Floyd worked at Lockheed Aircraft for 35 years. He went through Lockheed’s Apprenticeship Program and got an AA Degree at LA Valley College. So Much for the high school drop out! Sheila and Arlene came along shortly thereafter. He retired in June, 1991. He loved being home with his Louis Lamour books, pets, gardening, bowling, playing cards, going to Vegas, and beer. He liked fishing-one of his favorite places was the perch patch at Lake Cachuma near Santa Barbara. Floyd was proud of his grandkids. He was glad to see Jeremy and Kristen graduate and get jobs, and to watch Nikki working hard in College. Floyd had a Love/hate relationship with the Lakers, Dodgers, Angeles, and the Rams (when they were still in town.) He was happily married for 57 years.