David Floyd Chapman
David Floyd Chapman, the second son of Vern (Alvin Norman) Chapman and Stella Evangeline Filipek, was born on April 22, 1937 in Fergus County Hospital, Lewistown Montana. During his childhood the family moved to many different railroad posts as his father worked for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. During his teen years, the family settled in Donald, between Butte and Whitehall. Dave attended and graduated from Whitehall High School. While riding the bus to Whitehall High, he became “twitter pated” with a pretty girl named Charleen Snyder, who got on the bus a few miles away. After many bus rides, quite a few dates, graduation and a proposal, they were married on October 10th 1957 at St. Theresa Catholic Church in Whitehall, Montana.
They lived in Butte, Montana from 1962 to 1975. They had four children Craig, Jeff, Kristie, and Scott. While in Butte, Dave worked for a few years on the railroad with his dad, worked at a service station as an attendant and mechanic and then was hired by the Anaconda company as a miner and electrician in some of the deep surface mines and the Berkley Pit. In 1975, Dave was hired by P&H Corp to be a mining equipment field service representative for the western United States based in Salt Lake City. He and Charleen moved the family to Salt Lake City, Utah and became members and long-time parishioners of St. Ambrose Parish.
As a Field Service rep for P&H, Dave traveled all over the western states, visiting Mine sites to repair Electric and Hydraulic shovels and many times to supervise the construction of shovels in those open pit mines. Being based in Salt Lake, much of his time was spent at Kennecott’s Bingham Canyon mine, where quite a few of the shovels that he worked on are still in service.
Dave retired from P&H in 2000.
In retirement, Dave was always available to help neighbor’s in need whether they needed their walks and driveways cleared in the wintertime or their gardens tilled in the summer time. He was the Mr. Fix-it for the neighborhood and could always MacGyver something in a pinch if he didn’t have the right parts. He would always lend a helping hand to his grandchildren, whether it was driving them to and from school, driving on field trips or by helping at the schools with Mathematics, Reading, and Science. He entertained his grandkids and other little ones with his spot-on imitation of Donald Duck.
Dave is survived by his three children and their spouses: Craig and his wife Rosemary of Portland, Oregon, Kristie and her husband Jerry Griffiths of Salt Lake City, Utah, and Scott and his wife Shelly of Draper, Utah and his Daughter-in-law Donan Chapman of Greenbrier, Arkansas, 11 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by His wife Charleen and his son Jeffery Chapman. He will be missed by all who loved and knew him.