Merlin Dean Lester

Dean had this special mischievous grin. When you saw it you knew something had just happened or was about to happen. He loved pulling pranks on people. For example, he had Sherrie climb on the roof of our house. He gave her an umbrella to parachute to the ground. After some persuasion he convinced her to jump. Sherrie crashed to the ground but was not hurt seriously, I think it was him and Craig that put hot peppers in our milk cows grain. I had a little welch pony that wasn’t altogether kid proof. Dean decided he wanted him for his own. We called the pony Shettie. Shettie could run with the best of saddle horses and could turn on a dime. He would take Dean full speed up to a ditch or fence, spin around, leaving Dean in the ditch or fence. He would then run away leaving Dean to walk.

I used to tease Dean about Pauline Pierce. He got to the point that he hated to hear her name. One day Pauline was here out in the yard. I told Pauline I bet she couldn’t give Dean a kiss. Immediately the race was on. Dean looked back to see how far she was behind him, he stumbled and fell, Pauline was right on top of him and planted a big kiss on his cheek. It took Dean quite a while to forgive me of that.

Dean and Perry Lester loved working on cars. I’m still not sure if they helped the vehicle or made them worse. Dean looked forward to deer and elk hunting season. Craig and Dean would talk me into going hunting with them, sometimes in the pickup and sometimes on saddle horses. We had a lot of fun. I think Dean’s greatest hobby in life was flying. He got a job at the old Evanston airport. He learned how to give and receive messages from pilots, how to give weather reports etc. In exchange he received flying instructions from his boss. He spent countless hours doing this. He eventually got his pilots license. The summer prior to his going on his mission, he worked for Brown and Root over at Granger, Wyoming. They paid top wages so he saved enough money to pay for a lot of his mission.

He was called to serve in the England, London Mission. He loved the people and made many good friends, some of which came to see us. Dean loved the scriptures and it was amazing of how much he could quote verbatum for the different books. Upon getting released from his mission call he went right back into flying, then college at Ricks, where he pursued flying even more. It was here at college that he met the girl of his dreams, Sandra Braeger. It was a short courtship before we were advised that they planned to be married. On 17 June 1976, they were married in the Logan Temple. Together they purchased a little trailer house that they lived in while attending college. Sandy was pregnant but still pursued her goal of becoming a registered nurse. Dean had to have some night time flying before he could get his commercial pilot’s license. As it was Sandy’s birthday on March 19th, Dean decided to surprise her and fly her home after school. Apparently they left the airport sometime after dark. It was reported that they got into a spring squall. Upon trying to get out of the storm they crashed into a hillside, killing Dean, Sandy and almost full term baby boy. What a horrible tragedy to us all.

Written by LaMar Lester on August 12, 2006