December 14, 1992 – January 9, 2024
William Roland “Rollie” Wirt was born on December 14, 1992 at Bess Kaiser Hospital in Portland, Oregon. He came to his first home in Northeast Portland with his brother Jacob and parents Doug and Cathy Myers Wirt. His grandparents were Roland and Charlotte Wirt of Portland and Russell and Joyce Myers of Billings, Montana.
At the age of six months, Rollie moved with his family to Phoenix, Arizona where he lived for the next eight years. He enjoyed lots of time playing outside and retained a love of the outdoors throughout his life. Rollie attended Desert Sage Elementary School for three years and was baptized at Foothills Christian Church in Phoenix on Easter Sunday 2001. He learned to play the piano, the first of several instruments. He participated in Cub Scouts for two years and played team sports in tee ball, soccer and basketball. In the summertime, Rollie and his family took an annual “big car trip” to visit family in Montana, Oregon, Utah, and California. They visited many of the zoos and aquariums of the western United States and locations of natural beauty.
After Rollie completed the second grade, the family returned to Oregon. Rollie continued his interests in Scouts, music, basketball and the outdoors. He attended Raleigh Hills Elementary School, Whitford Middle School and Beaverton High. During middle school, Rollie studied music privately on both the trumpet and guitar. Playing the guitar soon became his strongest interest for the next dozen years. He played in jazz bands during middle school, high school and college. In middle school, Rollie earned a loud and long ovation when he rocked the school Talent Show playing lead guitar for Hotel California. During high school, he received awards for musical performance at the 2010 University of Nevada Reno Jazz Band Festival and at the 2011 Northwest Jazz Band Festival (Mt. Hood Community College) and he received the 2011 Louis Armstrong Jazz Award (Beaverton High School). Rollie chose to attend Lewis and Clark College in Portland so that he could study guitar with Dan Balmer. In college, he taught several students, played with jazz groups for credit and performed with his metal band at student gatherings. While studying in Germany, Rollie performed at Mr. B’s Jazz Club in Munich. As a graduating student at Lewis and Clark, he played a guitar solo of his own composition at the Baccalaureate. Rollie also performed with jazz and heavy metal groups outside of school, with engagements at local venues such as the Hawthorne Theatre, the Satyricon, Portland Farmers Market, Roseland Theatre, Jimmy Mak’s, Music in the Parks and more.
While music occupied much of his time, Rollie also devoted himself to his studies, Scouting, community service and recreation. In middle school, his name appeared on the Honor Roll regularly. In high school, he was a member of National Honor Society. He was named co-winner of honors as the best writer in his senior class, a graduating class of over 400 students. Through Lewis and Clark College, Rollie studied in Munich, Germany for a year, taking classes in both German and English and hiking in the Alps. Rollie participated in Scouting from first through twelfth grade. He earned the Eagle Scout award and enjoyed numerous weekend campouts and summer camps with friends, and adventures such as Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, Sea Base in Florida and rafting the Salmon River in Idaho. He received the Scout of the Year Award from Troop 592 in 2011. With the Scouts, Rollie helped over many years with community service projects at schools, parks and churches. Through his church, Rollie travelled for work projects in San Francisco (feeding unhoused persons), Texas (hurricane clean up) White Swan, WA (playground construction) and Monterrey, CA (beach cleanup). He enjoyed many forms of recreation, especially backpacking with his brother and friends. In addition, Rollie enjoyed running, hiking, rock climbing, zip lines, water polo, archery, bicycling, hacky sack, weightlifting and various other forms of recreation.
Over the course of his life, Rollie Wirt frequently displayed his determination, sense of humor, humility, patience and concern for others. After graduating from Lewis and Clark in 2015, he worked at Wild Paleo Foods in Portland for one and a half years. In 2016, he began to experience undetected symptoms of frontal temporal dementia (FTD). FTD has no known cause, cure or treatment plan. FTD presents at first with behavioral changes, difficulties at work, in making decisions and finding one’s directions. Persons with FTD usually wait 2-3 years for a correct diagnosis, including long periods of misdiagnosis by physicians. Rollie persevered through the challenging and progressive stages of FTD for the rest of his life. In 2017, he moved from his own apartment to living again with his family. In 2019, neurologists at Oregon Health Sciences University and University of California San Francisco confirmed the diagnosis of behavioral variant FTD, ending a troubling period of misdiagnosis. Rollie continued his love of the outdoors, often hiking several miles per day on local nature trails or at the Oregon coast. Starting in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic required increased isolation but the nature trails and his mother’s home cooking provided daily sources of familiar enjoyment. Gradually FTD took away Rollie’s speech, his ability to perform Activities of Daily Living, and finally most of his walking and swallowing functions. Over several years and through the various stages of FTD, Rollie continued to show his characteristic determination and patience, even when walking in the backyard became as arduous as his long backpack trips. He kept moving one step at a time as long as possible.
Rollie Wirt died at home on January 9, 2024 surrounded by family and longtime friends. Many family members and friends visited Rollie in the last days, months and years of his life, especially as Covid-19 restrictions eased. Rollie will continue to occupy a place of love and gratitude among all those who know, honor and miss him dearly. He is survived by his parents, his brother Jacob, and numerous loving and supportive aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. Rollie is preceded in death by his grandparents and by his sister Angela Myers Wirt.
A Celebration of Life is scheduled for Saturday, March 2 at 2 pm at First Portland Christian Church on 1314 SW Park Ave.
Memorial contributions may be sent to the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (https://www.theaftd.org/get-involved/ways-to-give)/), the Music Education Assistance Project (https://meap99.org/donate/?fbclid=IwAR2U4vUc-IxUis7F8lWzq_yd9LVNv7EXyGQiap044MIF2Q-IrC36k65pCgQ), or the Rollie Wirt Week of Compassion Fund through Christian Church Foundation (https://www.weekofcompassion.org/give.html).
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