Grandpa Ralph, the most interesting man in the world
Ralph James Yarro Jr. and his wife Linda pose for a photo during their 50th wedding anniversary party. The party's theme was Dia de los Muertos.
One time Ralph James Yarro Jr. answered the door wearing a dress and wig and told his granddaughter's prom date "I'm ready."
Ralph James Yarro Jr. and his wife Linda pose for a photo in June, a week before he passed away.
Ralph James Yarro Jr. took any opportunity to dress up.
Ralph James Yarro Jr. loved dressing up for any occasion.
Ralph James Yarro Jr. loved to make people laugh.
Ralph James Yarro Jr. loved BYU football and never missed a game.
A family man, Ralph James Yarro Jr. poses for a picture with his daughter, daughters-in-law and granddaughters.
Ralph James Yarro, Jr. dressed for a party in Pacific Palisades, California circa 1956.
Many words have been used to describe Ralph James Yarro, Jr. He’s been called colorful and confident, a gracious entertainer, a master thespian, a professor of greatness, a king of hearts.
To community members, friends and loved ones he was Grandpa Ralph, a family man who loved to laugh.
“He was — you know the commercial The Most Interesting Man in the World? — that was him,” said Ralph Yarro III, Yarro Jr.’s eldest son. “He was into everything, valued everything, explored everything and yet still found time in all of that to be this quintessential father and grandfather.”
Yarro Jr. was born in Chicago in 1939 — the only son among three daughters born to a German mother and Italian father. The family moved to California in his youth, where he started his reputation as a renaissance man.
While most kids at the beach near his home were swimming or surfing, Yarro Jr. would be searching for a stick to fashion into a fishing spear. He even had his mother fashion him a leopard print speedo so he could look the part.
As a teenager, Yarro Jr. and a friend built a boat with the intention of floating from Santa Monica to Catalina Island for the island’s Pirate Days event. They dressed up like pirates, boarded their boat and the currents took them not to their destination, but all the way to Long Beach, which was several hours away.
Yarro Jr.’s confident, adventurous attitude continued into his adulthood. Once, after determining one of the family’s chickens was going to die from a foot infection, he took the opportunity to experiment. He had Yarro III hold the bird while he cut it’s foot clean off. After caring for it during recovery, the chicken lived.
Another time, he brought a dead raccoon into the garage and called to his young son.
“He told me he was going to teach me how to skin an animal to make it into a raccoon skin hat,” Ralph Yarro III said. “And he did.”
Yarro Jr. was a cook, a collector, a comedian and an artist. Though often called a man’s man, he had no problem skinning a raccoon one day and then dressing as a mermaid for his granddaughter’s birthday party the next. He had no ego and he loved to make people laugh.
On family vacations to Mexico, he’d proudly sport a speedo and gold chain. When others would tease him, he’d tell his grandkids “You just have to own it.”
“He wore too much cologne and weird leather coats and thought he looked good,” his daughter Tracy Scheff said. “That’s confidence right there. He had no ego; he did not care. He’d just do what he wanted and you could not talk him out of it.”
Yarro Jr. was sentimental and found value in everything, easily documented in the more than 50 boxes around his home. Labeled Moki’s Treasures, he would turn ordinary boxes into time-capsule chests and fill each one with items associated with memories.
“We have had so much fun and it’s brought so much joy as we’ve opened each one and laughed about what he found valuable,” Ralph Yarro III said.
The boxes include everything from holiday cards and love letters to broken watches, pebbles, chopsticks, shoehorns, garage sale signs, balls of wax and even a speedo in a glass case.
“Some things are valuable, but mostly it’s just what he felt was important and what he loved,” Tracy Scheff said.
Before laying him to rest, family and friends — including his wife, four children, 13 grandchildren and a great-grandson — gathered items that reminded them of him. Inside Yarro Jr.’s casket they included items such as photos, prayer cards, a mustard bottle, fake mustache, sheriff’s hat, Book of Mormon and pack of cigars, essentially making a Moki box of their own.
“He was a family man,” said Linda Yarro, Yarro Jr.’s wife. “He just enjoyed life.”
Yarro Jr., 76, passed away in Provo on June 25. To read his obituary, visit http://www.heraldextra.com/lifestyles/announcements/obituaries/single-large-picture/ralph-james-yarro-jr/article_10c9f36e-9744-5e30-b72f-2dec86cc51e9.html.
