Lynn Waters

Lynn Blackwell Waters was born in Philadelphia, PA to Mary Waneta and Raymond Waters. He spent some of his early years with Grandma and Grandpa Blackwell and then moved to Endicott, NY with his parents. He was an older brother to Pat, Kenny, Mike and Jim. Dad joined the Army in 1949 and left their service in 1950. But as soon as he left the Army, he turned around and joined the Air Force where he served for 21 years. One of his earlier stations was in Hawaii where he met and married Dorothy Mae Miguel. During his marriage to Dorothy they had Steve, Rebecca, Keith, Sonya and Lynn Jr. They later divorced.

During Dad’s years in the Air Force, he was stationed in many places such as Greenland, Wyoming, Japan, Hawaii and California. The kids definitely attended more schools than the average person.

When he was discharged and after doing odd jobs for a short time, he eventually made his way to Idaho and the Idaho Nuclear Site where he met the love of his life, Iralee Atwell. Lee came with 4 teenagers or young adults, Rachelle, Jesse, Chaylene and Aaron Atwell. They married and combined their families which at that time included Keith, Sonya and JR. Dad and Lee started their own nuclear business and started traveling to different nuclear sites all over the US. They were married for 9 years before Lee passed from pancreatic cancer. Their favorite place was their property on the mountain near Thayne, WY where they encountered moose, deer and wildlife daily tromping through their property. Lee made Dad promise to keep her kids together and make sure they were all okay. Dad continued to treat Lee’s kids as his own and all the grandkids who came along have always known Lynn as Grandpa.

After Lee passed, Dad started talking to his old childhood neighbor, Patricia Kelley. She had been married and was divorced and had 2 adult children, Rick and Keith. After a short courtship, Dad and Pat married in 1989 and were still married at the time of Dad’s death. Dad made it his job to take Pat all over the US and show her things she hadn’t seen before. Unfortunately, Dad wasn’t blessed with a ton of patience and many times him showing Pat places like the Grand Canyon involved what we termed drive byes. They lived on the mountain until plowing the road became too much for dad and then proceeded to live in Alamagordo, NM, Worland, WY, McCook, Nebraska and finally moved to Chubbuck to be near Keith and Linda.

Dad was preceded in death by his parents, his son JR, his daughter Rebecca and his brother Michael. He has many grandchildren all over the US but one of his favorites was Katie Spanbauer who also helped him and Pat with some of their health issues in the later years.

Having been in the military for many years, Dad would get up at 4 to 5 in the morning and it took many years of gently scolding to get him to stop calling us all so early. After he moved to Chubbuck, we finally got Dad to not call us before 8:30 but if he was excited to tell us something, we still would get calls before 8. Many of us talked with Dad 4 to 5 times a week and sometimes 2 to 3 times a day and those calls are going to be greatly missed by all of us.

Dad was an avid golfer and loved nothing better than golfing 18 rounds with Keith. At one point he learned how to make his own clubs. One time he was hitting a wood that he had made, and he hit the ball good and it went flying but so did the head of the club. He loved to hunt in his earlier years and also worked as a cook in a hunting camp for fun. The highlight of the year for him when they lived on the mountain was the annual pig roasts where friends and family would come from all over the US. He had a special roasting device created for the pig and there was nothing better than standing there ripping off chunks of crispy skin. The roaster was given to Jesse to continue on the tradition.

As mentioned above, Dad didn’t have a lot of patience and possibly could have been considered a crotchedy, old fart but we all knew it was just a front. He was a teddy bear but if he didn’t like something, he had no problem telling the person. If he liked you he would tease you and give you a hard time. But if he didn’t, it wasn’t unheard of for him to flip off a person and walk out. All the time with us just rolling our eyes. But we all loved him dearly and he will be greatly missed.

There are no formal services planned at this time, but instead may be held at a later date.

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