Reid Morgan Wood

7/7/1934 – 5/19/2018

Reid Morgan Wood “Life is an uncertain certainty and has a great deal up its sleeve. It is nothing like the brochure. Our earthly existence is not a focused glance at an eye chart but a frustrating squint at a vague horizon.” At age 83, Reid was graduated from this mortal life and his Woodland Hills residence of 19 years. Reid’s struggle with a blood disease known as “ITP” ended Saturday, May 19, 2018.
He was born in Huntington Park, California, in 1934, to Charles Stoddard and Leona Morgan Wood. Reid was graduated from high school in Pendleton, Oregon, and received a B.S. in Public Administration with a Banking/Finance minor from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Reid was CEO/President of various hospitals in the western U.S. for 30 years. He was a Diplomate of the American College of Hospital Administrators, Chairman of the Arizona Hospital Association, Chairman of the Association of Western Hospitals, the Healthcare Forum, and a member of the American Hospital Association governing council for rural hospitals. “All I ever wanted out of life was the chance to prove that money couldn’t make me happy,” he said.
His lifetime of LDS church service included a full-time mission to the Western States Mission. He was a bishop, a high councilman, and a CES missionary in Montana (with his wife). He was a “China Teacher,” teaching English with his wife in Qingdao, China, for BYU. He also served in numerous wards as a gospel doctrine teacher (his favorite calling), where it was said of him that he tended to go beyond the period that should have ended the sentence.
On September 18, 1958, in the Los Angeles California LDS Temple, he married the prettiest blue-eyed blonde to be found on the 1957 BYU campus; the former Karen Ruth Jensen. She is the faithful mother of his eight children, who in turn have blessed him with thirty-nine grandchildren and ten great grandchildren. These are the kindred who have made his life meaningful. He is also survived by his two sisters and their spouses.
He was preceded in death by his Mother, Father, two brothers, and a daughter-in-law.
Before his passing, Reid pontificated “I have come to know that we were put on this earth to fart around and don’t let anyone tell you any different. But then again, death could make me change my mind about a lot of things.”
A viewing will be held on the evening of Monday, May 28, 2018, from 6pm – 8pm, at the LDS meetinghouse in Woodland Hills, Utah. The address is 220 S Woodland Hills Dr, Woodland Hills, UT 84653.
A Funeral service will be held on Tuesday, May 29, 2018, also at the LDS meetinghouse in Woodland Hills. The viewing will commence at 9:30am; with the service beginning at 11am. Relatives and close friends are invited to stay for lunch following the service.
The interment will be held at the Syracuse Cemetery at 1250 S 1000 W, Syracuse, UT 84075 between 3pm and 4pm.