Terru Oltrogge

Terry Dexter Oltrogge was born on March 15th, 1943 in Omaha, Nebraska to Victor and Electa (Zehr) Oltrogge, as the youngest of 4 children. About a year later, his family moved to Denver, Colorado and lived at 746 Corona St. near downtown, a place that remains talked about fondly by the siblings to this day. In the summer of 1949 the family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, after their dad had a small stroke and was advised to move to a lower altitude. Terry’s dad was called to be the President at Arizona Bible Institute at this time. While in Phoenix, his dad’s health continued to decline and, for some time, Terry lived with his maternal grandmother in Prescott, Arizona. Terry managed to find himself in some sort of trouble more than a few times, but eventually went back to his parents in Phoenix. At 16, Terry was alone with his dad for his fatal stroke. This clearly had a detrimental effect on him as he had a few rounds with the law during his teen years. As a result, his mother sent him to live with his eldest brother, Vic and his wife, Margaret, in Denver in 1960 for his senior year of high school, where he graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School. While living with Vic and Margaret, Terry learned about fixing cars and began to attend Trinity Baptist Church in Wheat Ridge. There he met and fell in love with his beautiful wife, Marilyn Phelps. While Marilyn went to UNC and CSU, Terry took some college classes for architectural drafting and honed his God-given artistic gift. He also worked for Rydberg Construction Company during this time. Terry and Marilyn got engaged on Corona Pass and were married at Trinity Baptist Church on Valentine’s Day in 1964. Their early married life took them to some interesting places. They lived in North Denver until Terry joined the Army in April of 1966. They lived briefly in Virginia during Terry’s military training, where he learned aircraft maintenance and repair, before he was sent to Vietnam for almost a full year. In Vietnam, Terry’s commanding officer discovered his artistic ability and changed his MOS (military occupational specialty) to illustration. During this time, Marilyn spent some time with another of Terry’s brothers, Dave, and his wife, Judy, in Honduras, where they were new missionaries. Upon returning from Vietnam, Terry and Marilyn were stationed in Tacoma, Washington where Terry did medical illustration. While there, they welcomed their first child, Eric, in 1969. Shortly thereafter, they moved back to Denver, bought their first and only home in 1971 and had their second child, Jill, in 1972. Terry began his post-military career at Samsonite Corporation. He was a drafter in facilities planning for 17 years. After a 9-month layoff, he was re-hired by Samsonite and spent another 10 years as a luggage designer and he holds 5 patents related to his design work. After he was downsized at the age of 55, Terry spent the next 8-10 years in a host of jobs, always finding a way to be creative, foster relationships with coworkers, and providing for his wife. They were active members of Trinity Baptist Church for years and Terry engaged in two of his great passions, mentoring young men and singing. Terry began working with Christian Service Brigade at Trinity in 1972, a very fulfilling aspect of his life. He was involved heavily in mentoring middle and high school boys towards Christ. Experiences from his own troubled youth gave him the desire to pour into the lives of young men. He worked with the Brigade until around 1990. He led many excursions hiking, camping and teaching these young men how to survive in the mountains. He was also always involved with music. He was in the church choir, part of a mixed octet called, The Joyful Sound, and in later years, part of a men’s quartet. He found much joy in singing and entertaining while sharing the love and Gospel of Christ. He spent several seasons as part of a group production called Encore, Encore and used his God-given talents for entertainment as part of the community theater. They left Trinity and began attending Arvada Covenant Church where Terry became very involved in the choir, Christmas and Easter productions with singing and set design as well as vacation bible school, continuing to mentor in the lives of children. Terry was a mountain man at heart. He loved fishing, hiking, backpacking, hunting, snowshoeing, and skiing. You could often find Terry fishing a stream with Marilyn reading a book nearby. He always had his camera with him; many family photos were taken with the Nikon camera he bought while in Vietnam. Oltrogge vacations were spent in the Colorado high country teaching his own children how to ski, hunt, fish, and the rules of mountain life. The Oltrogge family owned a hunting cabin in Ute Park and in 1976, they deconstructed it and rebuilt it several years later in its current home near Kremmling, Colorado. Terry was involved as an owner of the property with construction, renovation and maintenance of the property with his brother, Vic, friends, son, and nephews. Terry had the joy of being best man for his son, Eric, in 1999 when he married Molly. They reside in Ft. Collins and Terry enjoyed being a grandpa for the last 13 years. He and Marilyn went to Ft. Collins every week for some time to help Molly with Claire, Kiera and Caleb. Terry also got to experience the joy of walking his daughter, Jill down the aisle in 2016 when she married David. At that time, he acquired two more grandchildren, Asher and Tabitha, whom he loved getting to know and teach about art, song and life. The last several years proved to be a painful and unexpected experience when he became the primary caregiver to his beloved, as she declined with dementia. This was a tough time for him and remains one for the entire family and we are still learning how to walk in God’s grace, to fear Him and obey His commands. The family placed Marilyn in a memory care facility in September, just a couple months before his death. He joined Christ in paradise on December 20th, 2018. He is survived by his wife, Marilyn, son Eric (Molly) Oltrogge, daughter Jill (David) Roberts, 5 grandchildren (Claire, Kiera, Caleb, Asher, and Tabitha), his two brothers, Vic (Margaret) Oltrogge, Dave (Judy) Oltrogge, and 12 nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents Victor and Electa Oltrogge, eldest sister, Faith Oltrogge Taussig, nephew, Kirk Oltrogge and first granddaughter, Grace Oltrogge. Interment will be at Ft. Logan National Cemetery with a Celebration of Life service at Trinity Church in Wheat Ridge, CO on January 11th at 1 pm.