Jan. 24, 1928 ~ April 29, 2012
Logan O. McMurry of Montrose died Sunday, April 29, 2012. He was 84.
Born Jan. 24, 1928, Logan lived most of his life in Crawford, raising cattle with his parents on their spread just northwest of the Crawford city limits on Highway 92, which included the historic old barn which still stands today and is a local landmark.
From 1967 to 1971, Logan lived on Anna Maria Island, Fla., following his marriage to Dorothy Jean Snyder McMurry, and where he worked as a welder and a diesel mechanic. Though Logan and Dorothy Jean lived in what most would find an idyllic setting just a few hundred feet from a sandy white beach on the Gulf of Mexico, Logan moved back to Crawford with Dorothy Jean in 1971 to help his aging parents run the family ranch. In doing so, Logan not only returned to his roots, but helped his wife realize a dream she had had since she was a little girl of living on a working ranch in Colorado. Together, Logan and Dorothy Jean worked the land side by side over the next decades, with Logan augmenting their living by hauling logs off of Black Mesa and Blue Mesa for Spencer Logging, and doing custom swathing during haying season. A kind and gentle man, Logan's swathing jobs always took a little longer due to his always carefully walking the fields before he cut them, so that he could mark the locations of pheasant nests so as not to harm the birds or the eggs.
Logan earned state recognition for an innovative irrigation water conservation system which he designed and built, which required extensive re-contouring of some of his fields and employed a retention pond to preserve runoff water. Logan was an avid reader, and ready to converse on any number of subjects with folks who dropped by for some welding or mechanical work. Logan kept a journal of every day of his adult life, and was in the process of writing a history of Crawford at the time of his death.
Due to his wife's illness and her need to be closer to her doctors, Logan and Dorothy Jean sold the Crawford property and moved to Montrose in 2005. After Dorothy Jean's passing in 2006, Logan lived with his faithful companions, his dog, Blue Belle, and his beloved Kaiser, an old diabetic kitty to which Logan administered insulin shots on a regular basis, and which owed its life in the first place to Logan having rescued it as a kitten after it had been abandoned in the snow on the side of the road.
Logan was described some years ago by one person who knew and loved him as "a mountain of a man," which was not a reference to his 6'4" height, but the boundless size of his character, heart and kindness.
Logan's passing has left an enormous hole in the hearts of his family, but we take solace in knowing that he now walks fields of gold with Dorothy Jean again at his side.
Logan was predeceased by his parents, Perry and Mary McMurry; his wife, Dorothy Jean; and his brother Clarence.
He is survived by three sisters, Lois Brodak of Grand Junction, Betty Strong of Newman Grove, Neb., and Esther Smith of Aurora, Colo. He is also survived by many nieces and nephews, including his nephew, Mark Ratliff of Sarasota, Fla.; and Dorothy Jean's brother and sisters, Michael Knight of Louisville, Ky., Patricia Snyder Medley of Albuquerque, N.M., and Glena Snyder Radcliffe of Tucson, Ariz.; as well as his close friends, Bob and Heather Kuklish, and Larry and Donna Wiltse.
Crippin Funeral Home of Montrose is in charge of cremation, and a private celebration of Logan's life will be held by the family this coming summer.
Paid obituary
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