Max A. Holmquist

Max was delivered into the world by his mother Verla Mae Moore in Idaho Falls along the Snake River, in a house that was replaced and is now part of the overflow parking for the Idaho Falls, Idaho Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, where he served as a volunteer worker in recent years. Max came into a rapidly changing world and he evolved with it.

When Max was born most of the horse power for transportation and farm equipment was provided by horses. Cows needed to be milked by hand before and after school. Max learned to work on engines and automated equipment as it became available. He joined the army shortly after WW 2 at the age of 17 and became an aviation mechanic in Japan and Korea, working on the famed P51 Mustang. When he started one of those powerful fighters with a throttle stuck on full! He was able to save the hanger it was heading for by slamming the high power aircraft down on it’s nose. His army superiors wanted him to falsify his report of what happened, but he was not willing to lie, so they could save face and ended up leaving the Army Air Corps. after the incident.

Returning to the US, he went to work in Salt Lake City Utah where he became a licensed Cab Driver and then started working in Construction, He met and married Norma Lou Holmquist with whom he had 6 children. Max and Norma bought a 1/3 acre lot where they installed and lived in a mobile home. Max learned to work in the rapidly growing electronics industry by enrolling in a school where he built his own television set with a wooden cabinet.

Shortly after that he moved his family to California to work assembling guidance systems for the Minuteman missile, later going on to work on building the B-1B Bomber and then the Space Shuttle. Max worked on the Shuttle assembly in Palmdale, at the engine test stands in Bay St, Louis Mississippi and Alabama and then at the launch facility in Florida at the Cape Canaveral/Kennedy Space Center until he and the shuttle program was retired. Along the way Max got his private pilots license, but as a frugal man who put his family first, the license did not get too much use.

After retiring Max spent much of his time working with and even for his children and caring for Norma his wife of over 60 years. All of that changed after Norma died, when in his late 80s Max went back to Idaho for a family reunion and met Bonnie Hammer. Bonnie's mother and Max’s mother were good friends when Max and Bonnie were babies and Bonnie and Max had even dated as teens. After meeting, both at the age of 87, it was like they were teens again, but this time they had cell phones and could talk all hours of the day and night! Max and Bonnie were married when they were both aged by 87 years of life and they have spent their last 6 years together as aged newlyweds.

Max left this world loving his wonderful family and angry at CoVid 19 for attacking him! And for corrupting his good health and angry at the current government for attacking our precious liberty and trying to corrupt our Constitutionally guaranteed way of life.

A funeral service will be held on July 19, 2024 at 11:00 AM at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1801 S Fiske Blvd, Rockledge, FL 32955 with entombment to follow at Florida Memorial Gardens, 5950 South US Highway 1, Rockledge, FL 32955.