Marvin L. Rallison

Marv was born in Coleville, Utah, the second of seven children born to Robert Leo Rallison and May Lucile Peterson. In his early years, he lived in various large and small towns in southern Idaho (Preston and Mink Creek), western Wyoming (Cokeville), and northern Utah (Coalville, Salt Lake, River Heights), before the family settled in Logan, Utah, where Marv attended 5th-12th grades, graduating from Logan High School in the class of 1947. After graduating from high school, Marv attended the Utah State Agricultural College (later renamed Utah State University), studying chemistry and pre-med.

He served a 2½ year LDS mission to West Germany from 1949-1952, shortly after the close of World War II. His post WWII mission experience in Germany and his interest in German culture, language, and literature was to have a lifelong impact on him. He attended yearly reunions with his fellow German missionaries, remained fluent in the German language, bought and read many books in German, and generally shared his love of Germany and German food, Christmas traditions, and culture with his children and grandchildren. He became “Opa,” to his grandchildren, which is German for grandpa.

Following his mission, he returned to Utah State, where he completed his undergraduate work (graduating cum laude), then turned his sights on medical school at the University of Utah, where he graduated with his MD in 1957. During his final year in medical school, he met and courted Elizabeth (Beth) West of Idaho Falls. Marv and Beth were married in the Salt Lake Temple on June 21, 1957. They spent the next four years in Minneapolis, Minnesota where Marv completed his medical residency and their first two sons, Scott and Mark were born.

They returned to Salt Lake City where Marv worked at the University of Utah School of Medicine, specializing in pediatric endocrinology. An additional son and daughter, Todd and Lisa, were added to the family in Salt Lake. As a physician, Marv often acted as a doctor’s “doctor,” assisting other doctors on patients that presented unique symptoms that were beyond the typical medical practitioners’ expertise. In his medical practice he, with a senior medical student, described a newly identified syndrome of infancy-onset diabetes (which became known as the Wolcott-Rallison syndrome); published a textbook on the treatment of Growth Problems in Infants, Children, and Adults; and, became a fixture for 50 years at a camp for diabetic children (camp UTADA), where he was known for his dramatic campfire renditions of Casey at the Bat and his rubber chicken he named “Hortense.”

Another significant event in Marv’s professional life was when he was asked to participate in a study of thyroid nodules in children living downwind of the nuclear testing sites in Nevada. Over the decades, his follow-up to that initial study became one of the longest running studies of thyroid disorders in children. Doctors from the Mayo Clinic and the National Institutes of Health participating in the initial study also introduced Marv to the world of “bird watching,” which became a life-long passion.

Marv loved the outdoors and traveling. Family vacations were spent fishing, hiking, picking huckleberries, reading, listening to musicals and classical music, and generally learning about nature (flowers, trees, and… of course, …birds), at cabins on Henry’s Fork of the Snake River in Idaho or in the Uintas near Mirror Lake. He also loved to travel with Beth. Both before, and more so after his retirement, they traveled to Germany or Austria, and medical meetings in Norway, Sweden, Israel, and Switzerland.

Marv was an avid scouter, serving as both a cub and boy scout leader. Ironically, he never achieved the rank of “Eagle” as a youth because he never received the required (at that time) Bird Study merit badge. He remedied that in his later years, as a merit badge counselor for the Bird Study merit badge, helping many boys achieve what he did not. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, his favorite calling was that of Gospel Doctrine teacher, where he used his prodigious teaching expertise to help members think deeply about the Gospel.

Marv is survived by his four children, Scott (Cathy), Mark (Paige), Todd (Dawn), and Lisa (Lonny) Vanatta, 18 grandchildren, 9 great grandchildren, and his sisters-in-law Margaret Wilson and Ruth Rallison and brother-in-law Anthony (Tony) LaPray and brother-in-law Charles Faux. He was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Beth, his parents, and all his siblings.

An afternoon viewing for Marvin will be held Saturday, March 23, 2024 from 12:30 PM to 1:45 PM at Wasatch Lawn Mortuary, 3401 S Highland Drive, Millcreek, Utah 84106. A funeral service will occur Saturday, March 23, 2024 at 2:00 PM, 3401 S Highland Drive, Millcreek, Utah 84106. An interment will occur Saturday, March 23, 2024 at Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park, 3401 Highland Dr, Millcreek, Utah 84106.