Gary Bevington

Just Cremation

Gary Bevington, 73, of Missoula passed away on Thursday, July 6, 2017, of natural causes.  He was born on Feb. 3, 1944, in Fort Madison, Iowa, to Loyd and Jane. Growing up in Des Moines with siblings Lora and Kent, Gary exhibited two key traits that would characterize him for the rest of his life.  The first was his impressive memory. Even as a child, his family would quiz him on any number of subjects and Gary would often have the answers. Throughout his life, friends commented on Gary’s remarkable breadth of knowledge.  Gary’s second key trait was his profound love of learning languages. During high school, he managed to convince his Republican parents in Cold War-era Iowa to get him tutoring in Russian and Arabic. He would ultimately learn a total of 18 languages, with German as his favorite.  Gary’s interest in languages led him to undergraduate studies at Middlebury College in Vermont (class of 1966), and then a year of graduate study in Germany. His year in Germany had two major influences on his life. There he met his first wife, Patricia, and he developed an interest in the Albanian language.  The latter became the subject of his Ph. D. research at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, completed in 1970. He then moved to the suburbs of Chicago to become a professor of linguistics at Northeastern Illinois University.  The 1970s were marked by the birth of Gary’s two children, Doug and Jill. Gary was an active and loving parent, and his children fondly remember how he would play folk songs on his guitar for them. Gary also enjoyed travel, international food, and hosting dinner parties for scholars from around the world.  At the beginning of the 1980s, Gary’s first marriage ended and he then married Em, a school teacher who shared his interest in languages and travel.  During a family vacation to Mexico, Gary developed an interest in the Mayan language of the native people in the Yucatan Peninsula. His language research led him to build a small cottage near the village of Coba where he would live for part of each year for much of the rest of his life. He ultimately became one of the foremost experts in Yucatec Maya and published a book titled Maya for Travelers and Students.  Gary also became interested in other Native American languages, learned Lakota (Sioux), and did supplemental teaching at the Native American Education Service College in Chicago.  In 1997, Gary’s wife, Em, suffered a traumatic brain injury that left it very difficult for her to develop new long-term memories, and she often forgot things within hours or even minutes. Over the next 19 years, Gary was her primary caregiver. In 1999, he retired from Northeastern University, and in the 2000s, Gary and Em moved to Missoula near Gary’s brother Kent, his wife Bobbie, and their daughters Gale and Robyn.  Gary very much enjoyed Missoula as a community that was welcoming and embraced diversity. He made friends in his Brookside neighborhood. He participated in the Missoula Senior Forum. He befriended Missoula’s resident shepherd Enrique Marquez Banda. And he loved hiking in the Rattlesnake National Recreation Area with his friend Ebrahim Mayahi.  In early 2016, his wife Em passed away. Later that year, Gary began a relationship with Ginny Therriault that would fill the final year of his life. Ginny shared his interest in Germany and Native American communities. They traveled together to California and visited Gary’s son Doug, his wife Shaye Wolf, and their daughter Alex. They also took a roadtrip to Ohio to see Gary’s daughter Jill, her husband Don Hartley, and their daughters Johari and Tullia.  In short, Gary had a full life and enjoyed it to the end.  Gary liked bringing people together from different walks of life for lively conversation and good food. In keeping with how Gary lived his life, there will not be a formal funeral service but instead will be a memorial gathering for his friends to enjoy each other’s company while remembering Gary. This event will take place on Thursday, Aug. 10, at 10:30 a. m. at Pineview Park in Missoula.  In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Fund for Wild Nature (fundwildnature. org/contribute. html) and/or the Raven Rocks environmental building (gofundme. com/yhnbcdx8) in Gary’s memory.

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Gary Bevington Obituary | Just Cremation