James Randolf Andersen
November 2, 1947 - January 28, 2023
James Randolf Andersen, also known as Jim or Randy, passed away peacefully at the age of 75 on Saturday, January 28, 2023 in Provo, Utah.
Randy was the oldest of ten children born to James Christian Andersen and Annie Belle Gillespie. Born in Reno, Nevada on November 2,1947 and raised in Fallon on the family ranch, he learned the values of toil, adventure, and grit that are required by life in such places. These values were manifest by the way his childhood chore of chasing down and rounding up calves developed into a love of running. He later joined the track team in Jr. High in Orem, Utah, and went on to run for Las Vegas High and BYU, with his fastest mile being 4 minutes 10 seconds.
Randy was always the kind of person who was capable of doing anything that he put his mind to, opposition be damned. Being told he couldn’t do something was all the more reason for him to do it. At the young age of twelve he received his Eagle Scout award. He also worked hard at dancing, playing the piano, memorizing vocabulary words and prime numbers, gardening, canning, cooking, stucco, construction, scuba diving, camping, traveling, studying world history, and doing family history work. In all of these endeavors he never did anything halfway.
Randy attended BYU and received a Bachelor’s degree in History with a Minor in Latin. He served for two and a half years in the Denmark, Copenhagen Mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In his later years, he often expressed a desire to return to Denmark as a senior missionary had his health allowed. He married Kathryn Garven Rector at the age of 22 and they became the parents of 8 children. Though they later divorced, they always remained friends. Randy continued his education, receiving a Master’s Degree in International Business Administration from Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona. His interests, talents, and near-pathological restlessness led him to careers with various companies including Manufacturers Hanover Trust, Fluor Daniel, Kennecott Copper, Micron Technology, Positive Impact, and Halliburton.
Always intrigued by people, cultures, languages, and food, he traveled extensively throughout the world, fearlessly invading far-flung places such as Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Israel, Thailand, Greece, Spain, Germany, and just about everywhere in between.
Adversity was a constant in Randy’s life. He seemed to struggle with more than his share of external conflict, and as is often the case with such people, he struggled with plenty of internal conflict as well. But he always strove to persevere and forge ahead. This trait was demonstrated in the way that the tragic 1996 death of his son Trevor became a catalyst to work on family history. While serving as a missionary in Greece, Trevor had found relatives of the paternal Barbarigos (Varvarigos) line on the island of Zakynthos and recorded some family names and dates. Randy took this precious information and got to work in his characteristic all-or-nothing way, submitting many names to the temple, and also gathering their stories. One of Randy’s finest achievements was to stand as a savior on Mt. Zion for these ancestors making it possible for thousands to receive saving ordinances.
James Randolf Andersen was preceded in death by his father James Christian Andersen, mother Annie Belle Gillespie, brother Gary Christian Andersen, brother Steven Craig Andersen, sister Toy Louise Pretasky, son Joshua Solen Andersen, and son Trevor Randolf Andersen. He is survived by his son James Hartman Andersen (Chelsea), daughter Kaerlig Troy Hurtado (David), son David Rector Andersen Varvarigos, son Jacob Andersen Varvarigos, daughter Kathryn Rand Harmon (Tanner) and daughter Julianna Louise Kupper (John), along with six siblings, 20 grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews.
The family would like to express our deep gratitude for those who cared for our father while he lived at Treeo and Jamestown. We are especially grateful to Davy from Jamestown and Sara and Donna from Utah Home Health and Hospice for their genuine love and attention.
Funeral services will be held at 12:00 noon, Saturday, February 11, 2023, at the Edgemont 2nd Ward Chapel, 555 East 3230 North, Provo, Utah. The family will receive friends from 10:30-11:45 a.m. prior to services. The interment will take place after the services at Eastlawn Memorial Hills Cemetery.
Thank you: all for coming, for my brothers and sisters, my husband and kids, for my mom and her kindness toward my dad.
Over the last several years, my dad lived near me and I was able to spend a lot of time with him. Sometimes it felt very heavy for me. His needs were great and he had many many struggles. Everyone here who has a close relationship with my dad knows that things can get complicated. But I realize how lucky I am to have had that time with him. Although I knew that my dad could go any time, it felt very sudden and I don’t think I was prepared for him to leave so soon. However, I imagine him without his broken feet and crooked back, without pain. I imagine him with his sight, a clear mind, healed, with loved ones. I can’t help but feel overjoyed for him. But I miss him. I really do.
I have been thinking about the last 2 decades of his life.
On December 1, 2004 my dad was driving in a convoy to the airport in Bagdad Iraq when a suicide car bomber drove up alongside and detonated explosives. My dad’s vehicle flipped and the impact caused him numerous injuries that he suffered from for the rest of his life. Over the next decade papa lived here and there, never for very long. Provo, Thailand, Cedar City, St. George, California, Provo, back to Thailand, Salt Lake City.
Sometime in the year 2015, after he had moved back to Provo, he and I were driving together, talking, as we often did. He expressed how much he wanted to get his priesthood blessings restored but he was frustrated because wherever he went, they wanted a year out of him but he never lived anywhere long enough and then he’d have to start over again. “Do it now papa. Now’s the time. There is no better time.” I encouraged. He became motivated and went to talk to his branch president at Jamestown.
Within a very short time, things were happening for my dad. President Winterton requested that my mom and I write letters to the First Presidency on my dad’s behalf. In my letter I wrote “Despite all…the one thing that I can say about my dad is that I have never questioned that he had a testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. … I support my dad in his desires to become temple ready and regain his priesthood blessings.”
Elder Holland said "Mercy, with its sister virtue forgiveness, is at the very heart of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the eternal plan of salvation. Everything in the gospel teaches us that we can change if we need to, that we can be helped if we truly want it, that we can be made whole, whatever the problems of the past.
"Now, if you feel too spiritually maimed to come to the feast, please realize that the Church is not a monastery for perfect people, though all of us ought to be striving on the road to godliness. No, at least one aspect of the Church is more like a hospital or an aid station, provided for those who are ill and want to get well, where one can get an infusion of spiritual nutrition and a supply of sustaining water in order to keep on climbing.
"In spite of life’s tribulations and as fearful as some of our prospects are, I testify that there is help for the journey. There is the Bread of Eternal Life and the Well of Living Water. Christ has overcome the world—our world—and His gift to us is peace now and exaltation in the world to come.” (October 1997 “He Hath Filled the Hungry with Good Things”)
Not long after the letters were sent, my dad’s priesthood blessings were restored and we were overjoyed. I was able to go to the temple with my dad for the first time in my life. I don’t even know how long it had been for him. I stood next to him, searching my heart for any unkind feelings and felt relief that I could be there with him and feel peace. From then on it became very important for him to keep a current temple recommend, pay his tithing, and try his best. I know my dad had struggles up until the day he died but I also know of his love for Jesus Christ and his faith in the atonement.
In 2017 he met a genealogist named Joy and her husband Gary and he convinced them to fly to Greece with him to do family history work. He had done a lot of work in the 90’s but he wanted to go and walk the roads that Trevor had walked and meet his distant relatives. Through this trip, he gathered more information about his ancestors and he was able to distribute ordinance cards to the family and we went and did sealings in the temple. My dad took to heart the paragraph in his patriarchal blessing that states “Remember thy progenitors. As thou goest and comest across the land in the future years, give special attention to the genealogies of thy people. Search them out that they may partake of the blessings and opportunities of the Priesthood that hath been thine. They pray for thy welfare and will help thee to perform this labor in their behalf.”
In 2019, the thing that my dad wanted for his 72nd birthday was for me to take him to the Salt Lake City temple to participate in an endowment session before it closed for renovations. Uncle Jim, Hartman, my husband Dave and I were able to make that happen for him. And then in 2020 and 2021 he was able to attend the temple with my sons for their first times. Papa loved being in the temple and I am proud of him for his efforts.
A little over a month ago my dad was admitted to the hospital for the third time in just a few weeks. He was injured from falling and hadn’t been eating very well. I could see that his strength was faltering and his confusion was mounting. It was heartbreaking. On a Sunday, mid-January, my husband and I were visiting with him, talking. I didn’t know then that it would be the last gospel conversation we would have in the flesh. I shared with him the story of a woman who had been imprisoned in a concentration camp in Germany because of her effort to protect and hide Jews in her home. One of the most humiliating events in the concentration camp was when she was forced to strip for weekly medical examinations. As she stood there naked, not allowed to even cover herself with her arms while the examiners gawked at her, the thought came to her mind that Jesus Christ hung naked on the cross. In all the artists renditions of the crucifixion they showed a swath of fabric covering the Savior but she knew this was only out of respect. In reality Jesus Christ had been stripped naked and hung on the cross for the whole world to see. As her mind took hold of this thought, the shame of her nakedness left her. She allowed the Savior to swallow up her nakedness in His power and love. I shared this with my dad - how we do not have to feel ashamed for what has happened in our lives, for what “is”. Because Christ can take our nakedness and clothe us. Papa had tears in his eyes and he said thank you. (Story of Corrie Ten Boom found in The Hiding Place, Chapter 13 “Ravensbruck”)
In closing I would like to share a quote by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. He said “…surely the thing God enjoys most about being God is the thrill of being merciful, especially to those who don’t expect it and often feel they don’t deserve it.” (April 2012 The Laborers in the Vineyard). My dad had a difficult life and it spilled over into the lives of those around him but I know that God is thrilled to extend His love and His mercy. I love you papa. For your long suffering and patience through pain, sorrow, loneliness and a body that aged much quicker than you wanted it to. I am grateful I got to be a part of these last years of your life - your testimony and faith strengthens my own.
February 11, 2023*
Papa:
Work. Hard work in the garden. Sweat rolling down your brow as we listened to the oldies. Places that were vacant and left to the weeds and were transformed with new life. The dust, your fanciful designs, the raised beds, the magazines and garden books, and the experiments that worked: French lattices with beans, tomatoes strung up and climbing vertical, sunflowers with giant sagging heads and bright orange flowers, and zucchinis that piled up and were turned into bread.
You taught me how to make a space. To claim it. To change it, to build and design for it. We invited life with the blossoms we grew. There were lady bugs, mantis, and other mercenaries brought in by the hundreds to patrol and clear out the pests.
Sometimes, on a beautiful Saturday, I would resent the work. It wasn’t a question of whether I wanted to help, but a requirement to do so- a duty and a service. This was work that had to be done- topsoil that needed to be shoveled out of Denis Stoutsenberger’s pickup truck and hauled into our garden. It was grass that needed mowing, barns that needed painting, storage that needed organizing, rooms that needed to be framed out, pets to care for, and plants to put in the ground.
Mostly, I enjoyed the work. Sweat, earth, and dust. We learned to love hard work by doing it. By pushing through each stage, from the inception of an idea, the excitement, the big plan, and the immediate call to action. If we wanted it, we could make it happen. We all took turns with the grind, and we also worked together. We were taught not to whine, and we didn’t dare complain- especially not when the job needed to be done. But you Papa, made a party of it all day until the heat cooled, and until we could see what we made of our efforts. It felt good to watch things grow. And how proud we were of it all, and of you for helping us to get there. From all of this, we were changed, and we grew closer.
Thank you for showing me that things don’t have to be impossible. I saw, for better or worse, the powers of delegation, and the need for leadership when the time required it. You were the man that could stand up to the challenge. You could “rally the troops,” and then you would give them all a job! You showed me what it means to hustle, to learn, to memorize, to get the job, to fill the role and to do what it takes to become, to do, to lead and to grow—even when it hurts, and especially when there’s no one else to do it.
And when grief or loss seemed too much for all to bear, I watched how you rose to the call. I remember your perseverance and tenacity through the difficult moments. Your ability to pivot, to negotiate, and to make people see and consider your point of view. You taught me how to fight for the good deal, to bargain and to make a stand for fair treatment...and even if I was embarrassed when you’d make a scene in the store at the register, I was glad that you were there to do it for us! You were our fearless captain in uncomfortable scenarios.
I have always looked up to the adventurer in you, and the man who travels to foreign places looking for gold in the ground and new experiences to be had. “Let’s go!” you would say, and we would run behind you as you power walked ahead with long strides down strange streets in Mexico. Within three days of being in a new city, you already had it mapped out. You knew where to go to find the best food, and where all the people were. I looked up to you (a head above the rest) to be guided through the crowds. You kept us safe, but you also let us do our thing. “You see that clock tower?” You would say, as we entered the amusement park, “Go and have fun, and if you get lost, meet back here at the clock at 2:30pm! What did I say?” and we would repeat it back to you. Then we would go and have our adventures and come back. We were a family, and yet we were allowed to be independent.
You were an Eagle Scout when you were 12 years old. You did things because you wanted to. You appreciated things like foreign currency collections, disco dancing, classic rock, and black beans and rice (and still your black beans are the best I’ve ever had). You nurtured an excitement for the arts and for culture. My childhood was enriched with classical music on Sundays, ballet concerts in the winter, and trips to Cathedrals over the holidays. That was where the people were, and the excitement was there too. But we had to get up to find it and to seize it for ourselves. We had to get outside (and sometimes ‘stay outside’ lol). We had to do new things, and begrudgingly or not, we would.
All of this changed me. It expanded me. It gave me a thirst for the new and the different. It helped me to yearn for the beautiful, and to be curious for life.
You taught me to enjoy things, and even to splurge on an occasion- to go to the restaurant and order the steak and lobster, the Italian soda, and the French Onion Soup…but of course, your soup was always better. Oh, and what was the secret? There were three ingredients in your onion soup, or so you would say: 1) Onions 2) Salt 3) Water (but everybody knew there was a bit more to it than that!).
Mostly times were lean and we had to get by with less. We whipped it up, fixed it up, and made things do. Thank you for all of the good food, and for the good times. Thank you for the passion that it took to buy it all, to make it all, and to share it with the neighborhood. Thank you for roping us all into it, and for teaching us that our doors should be open to family, friends, and to all those in need.
When the times were fat, we would feel the excitement as we went out with you to buy what we wanted and needed. Doc Martins? Everybody gets a pair. Gear? We needed the best for our adventures (and I made sure to never miss out on those shopping sprees)! I am grateful for all of this. For the yearning of my childhood, and for the belief that good things are there for us.
Thank you for showing me the strength of the blood in my veins. For showing me that for family we will do anything. We’ll open our rooms, we’ll spread blankets on the floor, we’ll eat all the food and make do. Thank you for showing me how to be resourceful, to get the duct tape and wire for a quick repair. Thank you for showing me that sometimes we have to eat the $.32 can of beans to get by. Thank you for showing me to stand tall, and no matter what, to not give up.
Thank you for appreciating my creativity. For telling me my art was good. Thank you for telling me that I was a “funny guy.” Thank you for taking me skiing. Thank you for appreciating my smile. Thank you for going easy on me when I tried to get out of Saturday chores by hiding in the back of Kyle Reeder’s truck as we drove by (I know you saw me!). Thank you for letting things slide when I’d sneak in late at night through the window, thinking I had successfully evaded your carefully laid out booby traps.
I love you for the good times and through the sad times. I love you for the bright moments, and for the hard breaks. I love you for who you are: Maverick, explorer, pig trainer, and a hero for the living and the dead. You went to ground zero to make a difference. You endured sadness and sorrows immeasurable. You stood up for those who were being mistreated. You were a friend to the downtrodden, and accepted people as they were. You were a man full of talents and flaws- a real man, and I’ll live my life retracing your steps and making right the things that time didn’t allow.
Papa, I know you’re watching, and I hope to make you proud. I know we can’t do everything by ourselves. We can’t depend upon our strength alone. If we withdraw, then so will life, but there is power in perseverance. There is power and love in this family. There is strength in what we can do and what we can accomplish together. And though shadows deepen, and vision becomes too blurred to see the light…though our spines bend, and our shoulders slump under the weight of days…though our feet fail us, and our hands struggle to grasp the pen, you can stand tall in the man that you were for us. Let your light shine for all to feel. Let the warmth in your heart grow as the past is dissolved in the light of the present. Be curious. Stay excited. See the family that you helped to create, and know that you are a wealthy man with much to give and much yet to experience. Your life is a palette full of color, and the value of it is in the depth of each tone. The truth is in the light, and in the dark, and how they blend together. It is all a part of you, and it is now ours to hold and to release.
Jim James Randy Andersen-Varvarigos, you are my Papa, and I have only ever had one. I love you and will miss the adventures that we never got to share…and yet, I know that you’ll be there now. And now, you can leave behind the weight of this world. Hear us as we celebrate you and this long awaited peace… for now, you are everywhere. For now, you are in everything. And we are here with you, all at once, to celebrate your life, and to bring it with us through into the future.
Love,
Jacob Andersen Varvarigos
*Written and read to Papa on his 75th birthday, 11/2/2022, and read again on his funeral, 2/11/2023
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