Roger Leo Manwaring

     Roger Manwaring, 77, passed away unexpectedly in Boise, Saturday July 18, 2020.

     Roger was born to Leo and Rella (Sorensen) Manwaring on 22 December 1942 in Boise. He attended Roosevelt and Franklin Elementary Schools, West Junior High School, and then graduated from Borah High in 1961. Roger served a 2 ½ year mission to Germany for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after graduation. Although Roger did not remain active in the Church, his mission in, and love for Germany, turned out to be the root of his career as a successful freelance Medical Writer and Editor in both German and English.

     Upon his return Roger took classes at Boise Jr. College where he met and married Pamela Gudmundson, (in spite of her having attended Borah’s rival, Boise High School) !!! :-) Roger’s studies took them to Salt Lake City to the University of Utah, where he and Pam bore two children, Mike and Monika. Roger and Pam later divorced and the two children were adopted by Pam’s second husband, Charles Scheer. Mike went on to become an artist and Moni is a favorite school teacher in Beaverton, Oregon.

     Roger obtained his BA and MA degrees from the University of Utah in Zoology and Animal Biology. It was there that he met & married Diana Louise Piacetelli; they lived in Alabama, Connecticut and New York for many years. When Diana passed away suddenly from pancreatic cancer, Roger’s world took a bit of a downward spiral. During this time he met and married Heidi Katz (2001). He helped her with her higher education and she whipped him back into life and out of the doldrums that could sometimes affect him.

     Roger was granted a Fulbright Scholarship to Philipp University of Marburg, Germany where he studied German Language and Literature, 1972-1974. He returned to the United States and continued those studies at the University of Washington from 1974-1977. He was a National Science Foundation Trainee.

     After Heidi and Roger divorced, Roger moved back to Idaho, spending happy years with friend Margaret Thomas in Garden Valley. Eventually he moved back to the neighborhood of his youth, near Municipal Park on Boise’s East Side.

     Roger played guitar with Borah High School friends in a musical quartet. He loved art (his own and other’s), travel, music, the New Yorker Magazine and German Literature. (Especially E.T.A. Hoffman). Roger had a series of dogs who served as his faithful companions. He loved to take long walks with a canine friend and took pride in his ability to stay fit and enjoy the outdoors. He could be very generous, kind and outgoing. Certain topics were definitely off limits (like politics, social media, and the proliferation of plastic bags on US highways!). Roger chose to let contact lapse with a lot of former friends during the last years of his life as he became more reflective and inwardly focused, but he could still play the role of philosophic Swede under the right circumstances.

     Roger was predeceased by his parents, his step-mother Mildred Jackson Hunt Manwaring, & his sister Julene Manwaring Morgan Fasy. He is survived by sisters Adele (Victor) Austin, Las Vegas and Elaine Manwaring, Salt Lake City as well as step brothers and sister Danny Hunt, Kay Campbell, Steve Hunt and Doug Hunt all of the greater Boise area.

     Due to Covid 19 restrictions and at Roger’s request, there will be no memorial service. Please remember him fondly and express your thoughts or memories of Roger here on this Relyea Mortuary Site. Thank you to the many people who cared about and for Roger in the last years of his life and to Relyea Mortuary who were so good at helping Elaine and Adele make final arrangements!