Kelly C Jensen's Obituary
Kelly C. Jensen was born January 16th 1959 in Gunnison, Utah. His parents are Moyle Christian Jensen and DeOn Christiansen Jensen. Even though it was mid-month, he was the first birth in the Gunnison Valley Hospital that year, so his mom got presents!
Kelly died December 4, 2022 at home, wrapped in the arms of his love. He had battled rheumatoid arthritis for years and more recently several lung diseases. Everyone is grateful he is out of pain and able to breathe again. But oh, how we will miss him.
Kelly was extremely grateful for Lisa Workman, the love of his life, and expressed it often. They were together for 27 years. She is so loving and hard-working that he was well taken care of and able to be home through the years of his illnesses. He was also devoted to his daughter Arin (Chris) Nelson, born to Kelly and his then-wife Rhonda Youngdell Jensen, his stepson Hunter Workman, Lisa’s son, and a patient and kind dog, Houston. His beloved grandchildren are Ezra, Rebekah, and Jarom Nelson.
Kelly’s brothers and sisters are Janette (Glen) Keysaw, Connie (Robert) Brown, Jerrald (Janet) Jensen, and Carl (Terri) Jensen. He is preceded in death by his parents, his brother, Jerrald, his brother-in-law, Glen, and two baby nieces. Janet married Jeff Beck and gave the family one more brother. Kelly also has many, many nieces and nephews and great nieces and nephews who love him dearly.
When Kelly was really little, he would throw some mighty temper tantrums and hold his breath. This scared his mother, so she asked the doctor and was told not to worry because if Kelly held his breath long enough, he would pass out and start breathing again. A number of years later, he was caught letting one of his friends beat on him without retaliation. Because he was so much bigger, this was perplexing. When asked why, he said “I was afraid I would hurt him.” This was an early indicator of the gentle giant Kelly grew up to be. His kind soul shined brightly through his eyes and big smile. He had a way of making people feel deeply loved and appreciated. He was a great listener and never judged nor looked down on others. He was also extremely generous. Whenever he heard of friends of the family having hardship, he quietly sent money to be forwarded to the individual in trouble. Even though his own troubles grew very severe, he always downplayed them and looked to help those he considered worse off than himself.
For most of his career Kelly drove a “donkey” around at HiLand Dairy. He also had countless talents. He made the best grilled steaks and baked beans ever. He excelled at baseball until his arthritis made it impossible. He built things with wood. A few years ago he supervised some of his grown nephews in building a big porch on the family cabin. They love that memory. He also taught many of his nieces and nephews how to fish and shoot rifles when they were growing up. He’s such a gentle, effective teacher.
One of his most prominent talents was a beautiful voice. He did plays at Hillcrest High School and at Snow College, but he was humble and seemed surprised when people wanted to hear him sing. He was a favorite singer at reunions, funerals, weddings, and karaoke parties, singing “King of the Road” and other country songs, love songs, and funny songs like “The Unicorn Song” (With a British conversation between God and Noah that got us all laughing. He had the perfect booming voice to play God). There were also a couple of sentimental songs he always sang for his Mama.
Kelly loves the mountains!! He loves to hunt and fish!! Being with Kelly at the cabin was one of the great joys of life. He’ll probably hang out there now as much as he can. Some favorite memories include early morning fishing at Gooseberry, a snowstorm when his truck slid into a tree (with girls for company there was probably screaming going on) - maybe he would rather we forgot that one, early mornings when the men were together for a hunt, hanging out on the front porch enjoying the sunset or trying to spot deer, watching the sun come up at the firepit where he had built an early fire - with Houston by his side, or having a shooting event where everyone was involved safely to either watch or participate Oh he was so good organizing and caring for the children.
Kelly was also a patriot and very involved in politics. And he was the biggest John Wayne fan of all time.
It was challenging to get a picture of Kelly. He was very fast at ducking behind a corner or into a car or just disappearing when pictures were being taken. Luckily, some of us were tenacious! To be honest, that “don't take my picture” look of his is cherished because it’s just so “Kelly”.
Kelly loved to make people laugh. And we did. His funny sayings and retorts lifted everyone wherever he was. His self-deprecating humor is evident in his email address “fathairybaldguy@.” He definitely was not fat most of his life. There’s no way to know how he felt about being hairy, but the kids wanted to dress in flannel shirts with the sleeves cut out to honor his memory and found they could not pull it off because they didn’t have enough hair.. Also his big “Ahh ha ha” laugh was physically impossible not to join in with. Kelly wanted us to laugh and not mourn at his passing and to make his obituary humorous. Oh how we love him. Every John Wayne movie, every trip to the mountain, every song he ever sang, every bowl of Kelly’s stew, every big yellow dog, every fishing trip, every fire, every funny comment, every sighting of those red packs of Marlboros he used to smoke will make us remember and smile because we got to have him in our lives. Aren’t we lucky?!
And from Lisa: “Sweet dreams my lucky charm love,” Your Valentine.
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