Glen Ervin Southwick

Glen Ervin Southwick was born on March 2nd, 1937, in Idaho Falls, Idaho to Glen and Gladys (Porter) Southwick. He passed away on May 13th, 2025, in his home in Woodstock, Georgia at the age of 88, just shy of his 62nd wedding anniversary, surrounded by his loving family.

Erv was the youngest of two sons, with his brother Jim being just two years older. He attended school in Ammon, Idaho and graduated from the newly-built Bonneville High School in 1955. He grew up working on his family’s farm, tending to cows, chickens and pigs. When he was 13, he and Jim spent the entire summer clearing out ditches earning a whopping $50 each. Erv told many stories about the old Ford truck he and Jim bought together with that money. Their dad got them some Allis-Chalmers Orange tractor paint and paint brushes and made them paint the truck the bright color so he could spot them from the top the haystacks. They spent many hours working on that truck keeping it running until the day their dad sold it.

While in high school, Erv started playing sports and participated in football, basketball, archery and track-and-field. He held the shot-put record at Bonneville High School for so long that his daughters still saw his name on the record board when they attended the same school. Erv often said he played sports in high school so he could have access to a hot shower five days a week, as they didn’t have heated running water at home. In fact, growing up, as the youngest he was often relegated to the end of the bathing line. Once a week they would bring a small metal bathtub into the kitchen and fill it with stove-heated ditch water. His mother got the first bath, then his dad, then Jim and then Erv, who got the last of the cold grey water.

After high school, Erv continued his education at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. He wrote in a personal history that he was shocked he passed the entrance exam. At the age of four he and his brother were home most of the year suffering from childhood diseases like chicken pox, mumps and whooping cough. His mother - who spent most of her life employed as a schoolteacher – was teaching Jim. Erv was very interested and wanted to join in, but was told he was too young, so he quickly lost interest in “learning too much.” While in college, he worked two summers in the forestry service and was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. Erv would often say his fraternity membership was again, so he could receive a hot shower and meal.

Erv’s college career was interrupted a year before graduation when he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He could have deferred his service since he was a student but with the encouragement of his father, he decided to leave school and serve his country. He served from May 1960 to May 1962, most of his time was spent in Germany as an office clerk. While his time spent in the military only lasted a couple of years, he spent the rest of his days sharing stories of his adventures overseas. His family often joked with the amount of stories he told he surely served much longer than just two years. After finishing his active-duty service, he returned to college and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.

In 1964 Erv started working at the Atomic Energy Plant, otherwise known as the “site,” in the desert near Arco, Idaho as a health physicist doing radiation control for $2.74 an hour. He met his future wife Julia “Julie” Anne Harris at work in February of 1964 and married her on July 3rd of the same year. Erv’s wedding present to his new bride was a house that he bought for $14,500 at 1905 Curlew Drive in Ammon, Idaho. The house was a complete surprise. Julie knew nothing about it until they returned from their weekend honeymoon in Yellowstone National Park.

Their first child, Julie was born in August of 1966 and three more daughters, Lynda, Janet and Cindy followed over the next seven years. None of the girls were given middle names with Erv joking it would cost too much. As a family they enjoyed bowling, golfing, and taking summer vacations throughout the western United States. Every year at the beginning of fishing season they would take a family trip with Erv’s parents to Birch Creek to fish and camp in the sage brush.

In 1978, Erv’s father Glen, concerned that his wife Gladys would outlive him, requested Erv and Julie build a home on the extra lot he owned next to his home. They agreed and built a home, doing all the work themselves except for digging the hole for the basement and laying brick on the outside of the house. They lived in that home until they moved to Georgia in 2008.

Erv had a love for the game of golf and played well into his 80s. He and Julie both started playing in their 30s and taught all four daughters, as well as many of their grandchildren, to play as well. They both became very active in the local junior golf program in Idaho Falls. They helped grow the program from a handful of junior golfers playing a couple of weeks each summer to over 70 kids playing each week all summer long. Erv was also involved in the creation of a 5-hole short course at Sand Creek Golf Course in Idaho Falls that people still enjoy playing today. After moving to Georgia, Erv volunteered as a marshal at the Trophy Club of Atlanta so he could play golf during the week at no cost. Golf was much more expensive to play in Georgia then it had been in Idaho. He finally had to give the game up when his knees started to fail him in his mid-eighties, but he still enjoyed putting and chipping with his family on the artificial-turf green they had installed in their back yard.

Erv also loved to elk hunt every fall with his brother, dad, friends and nephews. They didn’t always come home with an elk to fill the deep freeze, but they were diligent in their efforts, often going back out each weekend until the end of hunting season.

Erv and Julie are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Over the years Erv served as Executive Secretary to two different bishops and spent time as the Elder’s Quorum President. Erv and Julie together taught a parenting class to other members in the church while in Idaho, as well as a service mission after retirement at the church employment center. After moving to Georgia, they did another service mission at the church food bank. Erv also served as the Cub Scout leader from 2008 to 2011 where he and his grandson Sam got to enjoy many activities together including making a pine wood derby car. He was an amazing grandfather, teaching and sharing all his grandfatherly wisdom and know how, but especially, how to tell a good story.

Erv is survived by his wife, Julia; his daughters Julie (husband Kent), Lynda (husband Nate), Janet (husband Jason), and Cindy (husband John); 9 grandchildren; and 4 great-grandchildren.

He is preceded in death by his parents Glen and Gladys Southwick as well as his brother Jim.