Lynn B. Barlow M.D.'s Obituary
LYNN B. Barlow, M.D.
With deep gratitude for his long and loving life, we announce the death of our 90-year-old father, Lynn Burnham Barlow. He instilled in us a love for our Savior Jesus Christ, a testimony of the Restored Gospel, the centrality of family, frequent prayer and consistent temple attendance.
Lynn was born January 13, 1935 in Santa Monica, California to Edmund Garrett Barlow and Evva Maria Burnham. 13 minutes later, he was joined by his identical twin brother Glenn. The two were inseparable — colored suspenders were the key to their identities to everyone except their mother. Their father had to place his palm on their foreheads to distinguish them. They raced their mother around the block, climbed trees and hiked the Santa Monica Mountains.
Lynn served a mission in Uruguay and Peru for two-and-a-half years. He loved the people and spoke fluent Spanish for the remainder of his life. He and his Spanish-speaking brothers called each other Ché. He had many Spanish-speaking patients in Los Angeles and Utah County. His eyes lit up when he could speak Spanish to anyone.
Lynn met Joan Yancey the day after he returned from his mission. She was his father’s secretary at the Bureau of Information at the Los Angeles Temple. Dad said she was wearing an eyelet dress with a ribbon sash. He had never seen anyone so beautiful. They were married in 1959.
Lynn embraced his Zoology undergrad from Brigham Young University. He lived what he learned. He rescued baby birds that fell out of nests and freezing snakes from the highway. He kept homing pigeons and raised quail. He had many varieties of finches and a mated pair of love birds. He performed ear surgery on a pet Yellow-Bellied Cooter, and splinted birds’ legs. He raised a screech owl in medical school and oversaw the lab rats. He spoiled his dogs Danger and Zoie, his most recent passion was a stray cat. He could catch mice with a paper bag, blue-belly lizards with a slip knot and fed baby birds in a bowl with tweezers and an eye dropper at the kitchen table. He raised a nest of baby birds on a two-hour feeding schedule. He caught bats in a movie theatre as a teen and at Bear Lake as a grandpa. Rosie the tarantula was an epic pet.
Encouraged by his brother-in-law Ken Nielson, Lynn began medical school in 1961 at the University of Utah. It was hard. There were nights he fell asleep into his dinner. He studied late and Mom held down the fort. Dad became interested in pediatrics after their third child, Jennifer, was born with Down’s Syndrome and a heart defect. She lived four months, dying in 1965 before graduation. After med school, the family returned to California to Orange County for an internship at-now UC Irvine. A pediatric rotation at L.A. County General followed. Since he had been in the Air Force ROTC at BYU, He received his officer’s commission in 1966 and the family moved to Minot Air Force base in North Dakota. He served as a base pediatrician. Mom, being an excellent accountant, noted that having a baby in the Air Force only cost $14. So she had two — one for each year in service.
In 1968 the family of six returned to California for his residency at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Dad thrived. In 1970 he had finally finished schooling. They moved to Northridge where Mom had their last child. Dad joined a practice, going solo several years later. They moved to their Chatsworth dream home and built a pool. Dad learned to swim. As a pediatrician, he worked long hours, conditioning himself to stay awake seeing patients in the ER, covering five hospitals, making a few house calls and attending C-sections. Dad said the hardest part of practice was seeing a condition in a patient he had learned about about once in med school many years prior. You had to stay sharp, stay current with the journals. The internet didn’t exist then. Dad and Mom moved from California to Utah in 1995. He joined Utah Valley Pediatrics in Provo.
Dad had many hobbies and interests and Mom shared some of them. They bought a sailboat and sailed on Thursday afternoons for a few years. She took a Jewelry design class and he joined in learning to facet gems. He hired a patient’s father to do the gold work. They took the family to Montana to mine sapphires and Dad made Mom a ring which included small faceted stones in every color they mined. He re-faceted damaged or worn gems for jewelry stores. He created custom items. He loved opals and learned to make cabochons. His favorite stone was Picture Jasper and would make pendants. He knew where all the tradesman were located. He loved jewelry shows and the venders knew him. Short-wave radios, Building model airplanes and ships, WWII planes and weaponry, weaving, painting, drawing detailed ideas on index cards he carried in his shirt pocket, cross stitch, mending worn shirt edges with a small, precise blanket stitches, gardening, weeding, koi ponds, reading, wood working, cabinet making, tiling, bird calling, insect, coin and stamp collecting, stone tumbling and Nat Geo nature documentaries. Lately he watched YouTube videos of anyone doing any of the above at full volume. When he awoke in the morning, he would often have a hymn come to mind and he would hum it all day.
Lynn died November 4th at 4:44 a.m. at Utah Valley Hospital. He rarely complained about his incessant back pain, but this last medical trial was overwhelming — and we were grateful he was released from his mortal body.
Lynn was was predeceased by: parents, his wife Joan, infant daughter Jennifer, toddler grandson Ken; Brothers: Jim (Joan), Paul, Norman, sister Maria Smith, Sister-in-law Norma and sister-in-law Elinor Nielson (Kenneth).
Lynn is survived by children: Leslie Randle (Quint), Lynn II (Heidi), Peter (Wendy), Whitney Ramboz (Bryan), Scott (Saori), 18 grandchildren, 25 great-grandchildren with two on he way, Brothers Glenn and Joel (Mary Lou) sisters-in-law Amy and Loree, brother-cousin David (Lorraine) and brother-in-law Steven Smith.
Friday evening viewing 6-8 p.m.
Saturday morning viewing 8:30- 9:45a.m.
Saturday Funeral 10-11 a.m.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
731 East Center Street, Lindon, UT 84042
(NW of the Lindon Temple)
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