Carl Jay Corry celebrated his birthday every April Fools’ Day having been born April 1, 1931, to George and Lucille Nordby Corry in Delta, Utah. Carl left this world on December 12, 2023, at 92 years of age in Moscow, Idaho. The story of his life is a long one befitting an expert storyteller of wild adventures and everyday happenings that became part of family lore. His girls, nieces, nephews, and grandkids loved to listen to his life stories.
Raised on the family farm in Sutherland with his siblings, he learned the values of hard work, rising early, completing a job well done, and playing hard, as well as acquiring a lifelong hate for rag weeds and mutton. While growing up Dad worked with Japanese Americans from the Topaz Internment Camp when his father hired a family to live on the Bishop Place farm, and with Basque Sheep Herders on the West Desert range. He learned something from every person he met including his two lifelong best friends, Jim Sampson and Harold Ogden. Dad, Harry, and Jim always made time for each other, spending many weekends playing cards and telling stories.
Carl left high school early and had numerous adventures including busting up the Big Four in Ely, Nevada over a poker game when he was fifteen, hitchhiking across the United States, working on the road crew building the new Highway 50 through Kings Canyon, mining silver, gold and uranium in Millard and Juab counties, and farming with his brother Keith. He honorably served his country as a Sargent in the United States Airforce as a payload specialist on B-29s during the Korean war (little did the family know he shuttled Hydrogen bombs across the states and Caribbean as a precursor to the Cold War) and spent nine months in a military hospital in El Paso after one of his numerous car accidents. A wild story from his military years has him and his friends running away from an angry Texan party host as he fired a shotgun at them from his porch (Dad remembered hearing shells pinging off a marble water fountain on the lawn as he raced past it). Carl’s love of fast cars started early when he bought one of the first convertibles in the county and later embarrassed his daughters by driving big, old muscle cars as well as his beloved 1957 GMC truck. His daughters only began to appreciate the vintage cars when they started driving up and down I 15 during college and learned big engines rule.
Carl met the love of his life, Ruthie, when he was twenty-eight after vowing to not ever get married. Carl and Ruth were set up on a blind date in Eureka and after Ruth saw him behaving like a fool in the bar she walked out. Dad followed and when he saw her standing across the street he immediately fell in love, and that as they say, “. . . was all she wrote.” They married four months later in Hinckley on Sept.1,1959, and celebrated their 50th anniversary early with their girls and family in Spokane before Ruth passed away from cancer in August of 2009. For almost 60 years Carl and Ruth owned a house on Lyman Row in Delta and enjoyed good friendships in the neighborhood.
Carl learned the radiator business from Bill Cook and purchased his shop in the original livery building on Delta’s first main street, later moving to property on the current main street, where he operated Carl’s Radiator Shop for over 40 years, working well into his seventies. Carl and Ruth took immense pride in being the owners of the shop and Dad felt a responsibility to keep the farmers in their fields and the truckers on the road. His daughters remember playing in the shop and with the kids of stranded families. Carl had a kind heart (sometimes to Ruth’s dismay) and would invite travelers whose cars had broken down home for a meal while he stayed at the shop working to get them back on the road.
As a lifetime member of the American Legion (Cahoon-Jensen Post #135) he supported Memorial Day preparations and instilled a love for our country in his daughters. Carl taught them to always question authority, make up their own minds and be independent voters. As an avid reader, Ruth and the girls enjoyed selecting books for him from the bookmobile and library, and his passion for the Salt Lake Tribune and the Chronicle Progress is legendary. Carl loved camping in favorite spots in Oak Creek Canyon or the House and Confusion ranges throughout his life.
After retirement Carl and Ruth explored the western states visiting national parks and museums, rebuilding the GMC, spending time with friends and family, and rock hunting in the West Desert. When Ruth passed, he spent time keeping up her flowers and yard, burning much-hated weeds in the neighborhood, clearing snow in winter with his antique tractor, and driving around Sutherland looking at crops.
In 2018, Carl moved to Washington and Idaho dividing time between Carlleen and Scott’s home in Grand Coulee, and Shauna and Tony’s in Moscow. We are grateful he was able to spend that precious time with his girls and grandkids.
Carl was preceded in death by his parents, wife, youngest daughter: Leta; brothers: Donald and Keith (Betty); and his sisters: Dorothy (Preston) Hubbs and Daryl Corry. He is survived by his sister: Marine Corry; daughters: Carlleen (Scott) Graham, Camille (Tanya Peterson) Corry, and Shauna (Antonio) Corry Hernandez; granddaughters: Melissa (Brad) Keymer, Michelle Graham, and Katherine Graham; great grandchildren: Isla and Graham; and close nephew: Guy (LaNita) Brinkerhoff and family.
The girls thank all friends and family who looked after Dad including the Brinkerhoff’s, his Lyman Row neighbors, Delta LDS 1st Ward, and especially his longtime home teacher, Robert Woolsey. We also thank the staff at the Utah and Spokane VA hospitals, and the caring crew at Aspen Cascadia in Moscow for their dedication during the last two years of Carl’s life. When he passed from dementia and COPD complications, Sue, the head nurse said, “Your dad had 110 lives,” . . . and so he did.
A Graveside Service with Military Honors will be held on August 30 in the Delta Cemetery under the direction of Nickle Mortuary. Time of service will be announced closer to the date of the service.