My dad's obituary

Florian David Houston
1927 – 2010


Florian David (FD) Houston passed away August 9th at the age of 82. He was born August 11, 1927 in Las Vegas, NV to David Edward and Nelda (Waite) Houston. The oldest of four children including: Ronald Houston (deceased), Sherry Hafen and Larvin Houston.
FD graduated from Virgin Valley High School and seminary in 1945 where he played football and lettered all four years. After high school he entered the Navy and served on the USS Astoria until the end of WWII and was released from active duty in August 1946.
After his discharge from the Navy he attended Utah State College where he supported himself as a fry cook. After attending college, he returned to Mesquite to work as a history teacher and coach at Virgin Valley High School. This is also the time when he rekindled his relationship with his high school sweetheart Betty Arlene (McKnight) Houston. They were married on April 30, 1948. Their marriage was solemnized in the St. George temple on July 11, 1964. Together for 62 years they had five children: David Clark & Judy (Peterson) Houston, Debra Kay Houston (deceased), Lisa Michelle & Robert McIntyre, Pamela & George Browne and Darrin Florian & Yvonne (Steedon) Houston. They have 20 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren.
As a life long member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints he served in numerous callings including: Elders quorum president, ward mission leader, high priest group leader, bishopric and temple ordnance worker at the St. George temple for 12 years.
FD was a successful entrepreneur owning several businesses in Las Vegas and St. George. After retiring from these businesses he quickly began his second career and was instrumental in the planning and development of Summit Mountain in Utah. He also served on the Beaver Dam volunteer fire department board of directors. His passions were his family, church and work where he devoted much of his time, talents and energy.
Funeral services will be held Saturday, August 14, 2010 at 11:00 am at the Littlefield Chapel. The viewing will be held on Friday, August 13th from 6:30 – 8:30 pm and August 14th from 9:30 – 11:00 am at the Littlefield Chapel.

I want to write down my memories of the day dad passed away for my record.
We had several tender mercies from the Lord on the day my dad passed away. My dad's heart quit working in the emergency room, they shocked his heart and brought him back and then put him on dialysis. Dad said to the doctor he was having a heck of a time getting to his 83rd birthday (he was short 2 days). This gave my siblings and I all time to get to St. George and be with him. When we arrived at the hospital he had been on dialysis for 2 hours. His potassium was 7.5 the normal is 2. This is what caused his heart to stop. The dialysis pulled the potassium out of his blood.

When we arrived he was looking pretty good, we were all able to visit with him for about 1 1/2 hours. They asked us to leave while they put in a port for his medicine. My brothers David & Darrin gave my dad a blessing. My mom and sister Pam and myself were all gather around him during the blessing. We left his room after his blessing, while they put in his port.

It took about 15 minutes, we came back in and visited and loved and kiss our dad, told some funny stories and laughed. His nurse came in and said we need to leave again while they did a chest x-ray and took him off dialysis.

We went out into the waiting room for intense care, at this time we all called our families and told them dad was doing so much better and we expected him to get better again( he has rallied several times before).

We had been out for about 15 minutes when my dad's nurse came running out and told us to come quick he was dying!!! We ran into his room and he was slipping away, we told him we loved him and we would take care of our mother. We told him to look for our sister who died at 9 weeks, and his parents,( My sister Pam is always the funny one in our family, and she said remember dad look for your mom she is the one with BIG earrings on). He relaxed and went peacefully to the other side. We stayed with him for about 45 minutes, during this time the dialysis nurse was still putting all of her stuff away. She told us how she talked with him and how he told her about each one of his children, what we did, how many kids we had and grandchildren. He told her how proud he was of all of us and he loved each of us. Dad knew his time was short here on this earth,and he made sure we knew how he felt.What a blessing to know what he was saying to others shortly before he passed away. My mom told me she wondered if his spirit knew he was going, on Saturday he had his brother and sister along with their spouse come and have dinner with him and mom, they laughed and visited. All day Sunday every time my mom was close to him he insisted she give him a kiss. Losing my dad has been hard! It does not matter how old they are, or what a good life they had. You still never want them to go. I miss him and I am so glad he was my dad! He had a wonderful funeral, on Saturday August 14Th. There was about 450 people came to the funeral, and we had 140 for the family lunch afterwards. My dad loved pasta, our family friend who is a New York Italian. Made her famous spaghetti sauce another family friend made a small birthday cake for dad.

We also had lasagna and green salad. I am sure Dad was looking down and loving it! My dad died on 8-9-10 a day we will never forget! Dad always said his birthday was the happiest day of his mothers life, Grandma Nell was missing him and pulled him up to heaven so he would be with her on his birthday!