Ralph Clifford Morrow died peacefully on Monday, February 19 at the Bennion Central Utah Veteran's Home in Payson, Utah, of conditions incident to old age. He was 87 years old. Ralph was born on August 24, 1930 in Dearborn, Michigan to Walker Clifford Morrow and Mary Agnes (Applegate) Morrow, both of whom preceded him in death. He has an older brother, Walker John Morrow, who died in 2000, and a younger sister, Mary Lue (Morrow) Feyerabend of Oakland, California. He graduated from Dearborn High School in 1948, after which he worked for his father at Mocar Industries, the family's sheet metal business in Detroit. In 1951 he joined the Army and volunteered for language training, which required a 3-year tour of duty instead of the usual two years. He then attended the Army Language School in Monterey, California, where he studied Arabic for a year. After that he was stationed in Arlington, Virginia, where he worked in military intelligence until his honorable discharge in 1954. He achieved the rank of Sergeant and earned the Good Conduct Medal and the National Defense Service Medal. While stationed in Arlington, Ralph and two of his army buddies bought a sail boat together and enjoyed sailing on the Potomac River in their spare time. Although he never saw combat, Ralph did sustain a wound of sorts when he was kicked by a horse while attending the Army Language School. The accident seriously damaged the circulation in his left leg. Upon returning home, Ralph started school at Michigan State Normal College in Yipsilanti. (MSNC became Eastern Michigan College in 1956 and Eastern Michigan University in 1959.) Ralph was a charter member of the Phi Kappa Phi fraternity on that campus and worked as editor of the school newspaper. He met Zella Thompson on February 29, 1956 at the student activity center at Eastern, where they were introduced by a mutual friend. They were married on October 25, 1956 in the Davison, Michigan Methodist Church. They celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary last year. In 1958 Ralph and Zella both graduated from Eastern Michigan College, where Zella received a degree in elementary education and Ralph received degrees in sociology and Arabic. They then moved to Florida, where Zella taught school while Ralph worked on a degree in business administration at the University of Florida (go Gators!) They lived in Melrose, Lakeland and finally Gainesville so they could be closer to the University. During this time, Ralph worked part-time for U of F in their Off-Campus Housing department. Their four daughters were born in Gainesville: Nila in 1961, Holly in 1963, Sharon in 1966 and Ginger in 1970. Ralph received his business degree in 1962, and Zella received a master's degree in education in 1966. After leaving Off Campus Housing, Ralph began working for the Florida State Corrections Department, where he taught classes to the inmates at Raiford Prison. (His daughters enjoyed telling new friends that their father had gone to prison that morning.) Ralph sometimes took his family to Sunday dinner at Raiford, where they enjoyed the beautiful prison grounds and watched the "trustees" (inmates who had earned a measure of trust) visit with their families. In the summer of 1971 the family moved to Salem, Oregon. There Ralph worked for Oregon State Corrections, where he used his writing skills to prepare parole eligibility reports for the Parole Board. In 1979 Ralph joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (The rest of the family had joined in 1976.) They attended the West Salem Ward, where the other ward members became their dearest friends. Ralph and his family were sealed together for time and all eternity in 1983, in the Salt Lake Temple. After retiring, Ralph and Zella moved to Orem, Utah to be near their daughters and grandchildren in 1993. Here Ralph enjoyed helping Zella prepare the Wingfield Family Society's quarterly newsletter for many years, and wrote faithfully to each of his grandchildren serving LDS missions. Ralph had many hobbies. He loved music and had a huge collection of record albums, mostly jazz and big-band music. He played the piano and the tuba, and made sure his children each learned to play an instrument. He had a beautiful singing voice and belonged to the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America (SPEBSQSA) for many years. When he was actively singing with SPEBSQSA, he sang lead. He loved to dance; his children sometimes caught him dancing with Zella in the dark in the kitchen, after the kids were supposed to have been in bed. He danced with his grandchildren, too, often having them stand on his feet as he guided them through the steps. Ralph also enjoyed physical activities. He played tennis and made sure that his children and many of his grandchildren learned to play. They went camping, canoeing, to the beach and the mountains together. He involved his children in community programs where they learned ballet, tap dance, swimming and karate. He enjoyed seeing the local attractions wherever he lived. Ralph was also a vintage movie buff, collected coins and stamps, and was interested in family history. He was proud of his Mayflower roots and his connections to European royalty. He enjoyed shopping the sales and getting a "good deal," which he blamed on his "Scotch blood." Ralph had a huge collections of books on many different subjects, all of which he intended to read some day. He enjoyed working with his hands and, in his younger days, built furniture and did home improvements. Ralph also enjoyed keeping up on politics and current events. He had a gift for languages and, besides being fluent in Arabic, spoke Spanish and a little bit of French. He had a keen sense of humor. Ralph was very private about his feelings and did not discuss them much, but he often exclaimed on the beautiful world that God had created, and the miracle of the human body. Towards the end of his life he spoke more freely about his faith in Jesus Christ and the Plan of Salvation. He believed in eternal families and expected us all to be together again one day. Over the years, Ralph developed vascular disease in his legs. Both of his calves and feet began to swell and turn black, although the leg where he had been kicked by the horse was much worse than the other. In September 2017 Ralph developed sepsis, which was partly due to the vascular disease, and spent several days in ICU. Besides receiving treatment for the blood infection, he underwent radical surgery on his legs. The vascular surgeon was afraid he was going to lose the leg that had been kicked. Ralph was admitted to the Veterans' Home for rehab, where he surprised us all (especially the surgeon) by making remarkable progress toward recovery. He worked hard at his physical therapy, eventually walking 100 steps unaided. He worked hard with his occupational and speech therapists. He read the newspaper everyday and even began teaching a fellow patient to speak Arabic. He ate a lot of ice cream. He was very happy at the Veterans' Home! In October, however, Ralph had another bout with sepsis and a third bout in February. He did not recover from the last bout, and died on President's Day, surrounded by family. One of his last sentences was an inside joke he shared with one of his daughters. He is survived by his wife Zella, daughters Nila (Greg) Blackham, Holly (Harold) Toomey, Sharon (Warren) Wood and Ginger (Derrick) Wade, 15 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. We miss you, Daddy, and share your certainty that we will be together forever. We love you!