Lynn Morris Carlson, the self-titled Dancing Man led a fascinating and varied life. Primarily of Salt Lake City by way of Price, Utah our dad died on April 29th, 2020 in Friday Harbor, Washington where he had been living for the last 7 years. Lynn passed away in his sleep a week short of his 78th birthday after living with Parkinson’s disease for nearly 20 years. Married twice, first to Judy Stanfield née Rowley and then Mona Carlson, née Strand and father to five: JDee, Jennifer, Michelle, Max and Sam.
Always an entrepreneur, Lynn was used to calling the shots and doing pretty much everything his way. Lynn peddled pencils in elementary school, worked for various family enterprises in Price and founded a CPA firm in Salt Lake City. Lynn worked on a variety of other companies and investments, including doing expert witness work and obtaining patents. Lynn was very bright, and solved complex problems for his clients, and when Parkinson’s set in, for himself such as his ingenious “step-over” stick and other small improvisations to make his life better.
Born to F. Oscar and Rose Carlson in Price, Lynn had a pretty idyllic childhood, with lots of family and extended family nearby. At the end of his life his walls were covered with pictures of the old times – mountain lion hunts, sheep herding, and family picnics in the mountains near Price. Our dad graduated from East Carbon High School, class of 1960, where he was the student body president, on the debate team, and voted most likely to succeed. Then he attended Carbon College (College of Eastern Utah) until 1963, where he also served as student body president, eventually graduating from the University of Utah in 1965.
In the 1970s Lynn and Judy, with their young children JDee and Jennifer, tromped the Uintas, fished favorite creeks, collected pine nuts and asparagus in southern Utah, and went to their cabin at Scofield Reservoir. All this when not building their home on Dorchester Drive in Salt Lake or furthering their careers in public accounting and education. He would treat his kids to comics and vinyl records, buy them any book they wanted, and grew raspberries and rhubarb for pies.
In the 1980s Lynn and Judy divorced, and Lynn married Mona Strand, who became his business partner and equal at the CPA firm, which thrived under their control. Lynn and Mona worked long hours, had matching TAXMAN and TAXLADY license plates, enjoyed season tickets to the Jazz, and always found time to go to Scofield for summer weekends, taking along whoever wanted to go, including Michelle, Max and Sam, their children. Leaving for the cabin Lynn would pack coolers with copious amounts of sliced meats and cheeses, and anything else anybody wanted. He would fry the scones for breakfast, drive the ski-boat until the wind picked up, and then gas the boat and take us fishing in the evening. At his best, he never stopped making sure whoever was there was having a good time. At the end of every weekend Lynn made us wax the ski boat, but made sure that American Pie was blaring on the stereo. But perhaps Lynn’s favorite time was getting up well before dawn, and hiking into the Avintaquin, where he would artfully land his fly into the hole and before you knew it add another trout to the creel. Breakfast and lunch was trout cooked over a fire down near the stream. No trout, no food.
Now on his own, Parkinson’s disease, and the medications he needed, eventually took control of his life, his business, his judgment and his relationships. Lynn’s long dormant love of photography blossomed, and he pursued a new career in speculative photography, restored old cars, and decorated and drove the infamous “Rat” car. He was well known around Salt Lake City, and made friends wherever he went. His addiction to his medications, however, ran unchecked and he ended up living for a brief time on the streets of Salt Lake.
In 2013 Lynn moved to Friday Harbor, Washington to be near his daughter Jennifer. While his brain never fully recovered from the trauma, he had a happy and more stable life. He passed his last 7 years playing bridge with close friends at the Mullis Senior Center, dancing with beautiful women to live music, watching Gunsmoke reruns and Utah sports on television, and spending time with his family. Lynn loved nothing more than when people would call out and yell “Hey Gramps!” as he zoomed around our small town in his motorized wheelchair, or when he was helped into a center court seat for his grandchildren’s basketball games. On his last day of life, in true form, Lynn told the doctors that there was no way he was going to spend the night in the hospital (he had only been there for a couple hours) and he walked himself to the car. We read him a favorite Shel Silverstien poem as we said goodnight, fully expecting to see him in the morning.
Lynn is survived by his brothers Pierre (Salt Lake) and Merril (Price), sister Marie Mancini (Price), his 5 children, 8 grandchildren, and one great grandchild.