Regnal W. Garff Jr., a judge who was the first to serve in a Utah juvenile court and was a founding member of the Utah Court of Appeals, has died.
Garff died Saturday, according to a statement issued Tuesday from the Utah State Courts. No cause of death was mentioned. He was 95.
Garff “truly was one of the giants of the Utah judiciary,” Judge Gregory Orme of the Utah Court of Appeals said in a statement.
Orme and Garff were both appointed by Gov. Norm Bangerter to the appeals court when it was formed in 1987.
“He was the oldest appointee; I was the youngest,” Orme wrote, adding that the panel elected Garff as the presiding judge.
“His office was right next to mine, and we got along fabulously although he was old enough to be my father,” Orme wrote. Garff retired six years later, in 1993, Orme said, “but we remained good friends throughout the decades that followed.”
Regnal Washington Garff Jr. was born Nov. 9, 1927, in Salt Lake City, to Regnal W. Garff and Mary Ruby Tattersall Garff, according to a family-written obituary. He was the only boy in the family, and had six older sisters, prompting his father to call him “the seventh wonder of the world.”
Garff graduated from East High School, and earned a degree in psychology from the University of Utah. He served in the 185th Engineer Combat Battalion at the end of World War II, followed by a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the Netherlands.
Returning to Salt Lake City, he started studying for a law degree at the University of Utah. He met a brunette in the university library, Margaret Wheeler; they were married in the Salt Lake Temple on Sept. 16, 1954. In short order, he earned his law degree and a graduate certificate in social work, and saw the birth of their first child, Leslie. The Garffs went on to raise four children: Leslie, Lisa, Marianne and Regnal.
Garff opened a law firm with his friend, Frank Matheson — but within a few years, in 1959, Garff was appointed by Gov. George D. Clyde to be the first juvenile court judge in Utah, serving in what is now the Third District Juvenile Court.
What made Garff such a good jurist over his 34-year career, Orme wrote, was that “he was empathetic, generous with his time, flexible, humorous and fair.”
Margaret Garff died in December 1998. On Feb. 27, 2004, Garff married Leslie Rogers Bailey — and, 18 months later, the two served a full-time mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, at the church’s historic sites in Kirtland, Ohio.
Garff is survived by his second wife, Leslie; his four children — Leslie Hansen, Lisa Foster, Marianne Reed and Regnal Garff — and their spouses; 14 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren; and Leslie’s four children — Brent Bailey, Melinda Larsen, DeLee Cheshire and Bryan Bailey — and their spouses. His first wife, Margaret, and his six sisters died previously.
A celebration of life is scheduled to be held Saturday at noon at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel at 2222 E. Fisher Lane, Salt Lake City. A visitation is scheduled for Friday, 6 to 8 p.m., and Saturday at 10:30 a.m., before the noon services.
