Many elderly in Utah have inspiring tales to tell

J.D. King was living out his last days in a Bountiful nursing home when I found him last winter.

A small, frail man, he spent his days quietly, napping, listening to music and sifting through memories so rich they seem to be borrowed from a novel.

In a profile that was published in January, I noted that King appeared to be an ordinary man, no different than the other residents of the North Canyon Care Center. It was only when you saw a few news clippings and photos on the wall that you realized there was much more; it was only when you probed that you learned that he had spent the best years of his youth in high adventure, that he had embarked on a midnight ride through Nazi-occupied forests on a white stallion and daily walked side by side with the legendary Gen. George Patton and stared into the face of Stalin and sailed the Atlantic on the Queen Mary and ridden a tank onto Utah Beach in the D-Day invasion and into the Battle of the Bulge, that he had been in two of the most storied battles in the history of the world.

He was like Forrest Gump during the war, bumping into history at every turn.

King, who passed away a couple of weeks ago, never would have come to my attention if not for an email from Dennis Wolfley, the plant manager of the care center and a Vietnam vet who developed a close relationship with King. He would have been largely forgotten, and that's the point this story.

After reading King's profile in the Deseret News, Lance Hassell went to meet King personally. Hassell is regional vice president of Avalon Health Care, which owns nursing homes throughout the Intermountain West, including the North Canyon Care Center. After visiting with King, Hassell realized there must be other care-center residents who had lived extraordinary and accomplished lives but now were forgotten and cast aside.

Hassell decided to do something about it. Avalon hired Fuel Marketing to interview residents of their various care centers throughout the state to learn more about their lives. They will honor 14 of those residents at the first Avalon Life Journeys Honors Night at the Little America Hotel on Aug. 19, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. King also will be honored posthumously.

"These people were once young and vibrant and led interesting and accomplished lives," says Hassell. "People forget that. Just because they're in a care facility doesn't mean their lives are over. They need to be valued, respected and honored."