Richard H. Utt

Richard Utt was born on April 29, 1923 at the New England Sanitarium in Stoneham, MA, to Charles and Miriam Utt, who were teachers at Atlantic Union College. Richard was the second son in what was to become a family of five boys. Richard remembers that as a small child he accompanied his parents, along with a busload of college students, to the historic and literary shrines of the Boston area such as Bunker Hill, Lexington and Concord, and Thoreau's Walden Pond.

In 1932, with his father in poor health, doctors advised a move to a milder climate. In the middle of the Great Depression, the family, now numbering six, headed west to California, settling in Berkeley. Richard attended grade school and academy at Golden Gate Academy. His father was not well enough to work, but his energetic mother found various secretarial jobs to support the family.

In 1938, Richard's father was well enough to resume teaching and was hired to teach English at Pacific Union College. The family moved to Angwin, California, where Richard finished academy and college. Although he received his highest marks in science, math, and languages, he felt impressed to become a minister and graduated with a major in religion in 1945. His first call was to serve as a ministerial intern working in the Sacramento Valley. In 1946, he met the love of his life, Gwen Woodward. They were married in July 1947.

Even before they were married, Richard and Gwen had signed an application to serve as missionaries, thinking they would be called to India, where she had grown up. But the General Conference, needing someone with Spanish language preparation, called them to the Republic of Panama. They accepted the call, sailing from San Francisco in January, 1948 on a 28 passenger freighter.

In Panama, Richard was assigned to work as a country pastor with a group of eight tiny churches in the delightfully primitive province of Chiriquí. Richard was soon speaking Spanish fluently and loved the beauty that surrounded them in the tropics just 8 degrees from the Equator. Many friendships formed during those years have lasted for over sixty years and they have returned many times to Panama, to visit these friends and their descendants, and witness the growth of those churches.

The couple next served in the Canal Zone of Panama where Richard was the pastor of the Panama City Church and later as the president of the Costa Rica Mission for four years. During these years in Central America, the family grew to include two boys and two girls; Charles, Jeannie, David and Lynn.

After a decade in Central America, the family returned to the U.S., where Richard attended the Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. Richard had been chosen to be the Assistant Editor of Signs of the Times Magazine at the Pacific Press in Mountain View, California, assisting Arthur S. Maxwell. In 1961 he became the head book editor at the Pacific Press where he served for fifteen more years. Recognized as an able writer, Richard authored, during his lifetime, some 400 pieces accepted for publication; articles, stories, editorials, book reviews, even poems. He also authored eleven books, three of them biographies. During his years as book editor, Richard had private interviews with a variety of interesting people, including Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia and President Harry Truman.

In 1976 Richard and Gwen moved to Southern California where their two youngest children were enrolled in Loma Linda University. The Utts have been members of the Loma Linda University Church since 1976. The University asked Richard to write a commemorative book to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the University. From Vision to Reality was completed for the 1980 Celebration.

As a lifelong Seventh-day Adventist, Richard always took a keen interest in his church and its progress. As a minister he felt privileged to have conducted weddings and baptisms of several of his children and grandchildren. Through the years, some of his most cherished memories were times spent with family. He never dreamed he’d live to see five generations of family.

In retirement the couple enjoyed foreign travel taking trips to countries such as Egypt, Turkey, Scandinavia, Russia, Tibet, Nepal, and India where Gwen could show him special places from her childhood days. In 1998, Richard suffered a dissecting aneurysm of the aorta and was rushed to Loma Linda University Medical Center where surgeons saved his life. Since then he has thanked God for the special gift of each day of life as it comes. Looking back over his fourscore years and more, he has often expressed gratitude for a life filled with blessings, especially sixty five years, happily married to Gwen, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who will miss him.