Russell Senff

Russell B. Senff, also known as “Rascal” or “The Grouch,” passed away on Aug. 20, 2015, in Fountain Hills.

He was born in Bre-men, Ind. on May 31, 1923, to Harvey Delbert and Laura May (Leeper) Senff, being the seventh of 12 children. He attended high school in Argos, Ind., graduating in 1942. He then enlisted in the U.S. Navy, trained as a Navy medic and was honorably discharged in 1946 following his last tour based at Pearl Harbor.

Russell enjoyed hunt-ing, fishing, boating and farming. He received his pilot’s license around 1947, although he contin-ued to enjoy his other hobbies more.

Russell met Annice Marie Hodges, married in 1954 and divorced in 1969, but remained friends. During their marriage, Russell adopted Annice’s two children, Gary and Rebecca, and they had two more chil-dren, Stephen and Philip.

Russell spent the ma-jority of his working life in the construction trade in California, Idaho, Indiana and Arizona.

Russell met and mar-ried Fern (Benson) Sherk on May 26, 1971 in Cen-terville, Mich. Fern’s chil-dren, Hank, Ellen, and Ted Jr. Sherk became part of Russell and Fern’s family.

Upon moving to Arizo-na, Russell started screen printing T-shirts and con-tinued to sell craft mate-rials at swap meets, where he taught his grandchildren the “Senff Technique” to selling. In Fountain Hills, Russell worked at Coast-to-Coast and Paul’s ACE Hardware until he retired.

Russell was very active in the LDS Church in both Plymouth, Ind. and Fountain Hills. Around the holidays, he and Fern would make lots of raisin bread and dozens of cook-ies. The grandchildren, as well as friends, always looked forward to the cookies, especially the monster and potato chip cookies.

“The Grouch” has left Fern, his wife of 44 years, to manage the crew, con-sisting of six children: Philip (Kim) Senff, Ste-phen Senff, Gary Senff and Ted (Kelly) Sherk, all in Arizona, with Ellen Sherk in Indiana and Ashley (James) Winterset in Washington.

Left behind are 22 grandchildren, more than 30 great-grandchildren, and two sisters in Indi-ana, Bonnie Bagley in Plymouth and Thelma Miller in Walkerton. He was preceded in death by three brothers, six sisters, one stepson, one daughter and one grandchild.

Family and friends will miss Russell’s loving, giv-ing, kind attitude. They will also miss his “dry” sense of humor as he con-tinued to make people snicker and laugh up to the end.

There was a memorial service and luncheon at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on Aug. 29.

As a memorial, the family requests that you make an appropriate do-nation to your favorite charity in Russell’s name.