Larry James Russell's Obituary
Larry James Russell, a longtime resident of Union City, passed away peacefully at home in the early morning hours of the first day of Autumn, September 22, 2017.Larry was born on December 4, 1942 in Prairie Grove, Arkansas. He was the only child of Mary Elizabeth and James Brooks Russell, Jr. His ancestry included pioneer settlers in Georgia and Oklahoma, as well as gold seekers in Colorado and Northern California. Larry grew up playing in the snow drifts and forests of Westwood, California, and later in Cottonwood, California, where he fished in the creek and explored Mt. Lassen and Mt. Shasta as a youth. Larry was born with an unbounded intellectual curiosity and artistic creativity. He was an avid reader of books, with interests in many fields. He was a class of 1960 graduate of Anderson High School in Anderson, California. He attended Shasta College in Redding, California, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Chico, State University in 1965 where he was a member of Phi Kappa Tau fraternity. On July 15, 1966 he graduated from California Highway Patrol Academy in Sacramento, California. He began his 32 year career in the San Leandro area and then Hayward area where he honed his skills in accident investigation and reviewed all the accident reports in the area. He served as a member of the M.A.I.T team which reconstructed complex accidents in the Division. He participated in the rewrite of the Crash Investigation Manual for the Highway Patrol during his career. He retired in 1998 and became a driving instructor for Bay Area Driving School. He was married for 53 years to Sharon Foster, whom he met at Chico State when they were students. He has two children, Leslie Russell Evans of Paradise, California and Eric Russell of Yuba City, California, a son-in-law, David Evans, and two grandchildren, Scott and Caitlin Evans of Chico, California. The family requests in lieu of flowers that contributions be made to Feed the Children, St. Jude Children’s Hospital or the CAHP widows and Orphans Fund.
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