Douglas Dewitz

Doug Dewitz, loving husband, father, friend, passed from this world on March 3rd, 2024. There are no words for what this man meant to the people in his life but we will try our best to convey.
Doug Dewitz was born in Buffalo, NY in 1946 to Charles Dewitz and June Ford. He was raised by his father and his loving step mother, Vivian Dewitz, along with his younger brother, Roger Dewitz. As a young boy, he was smart and intuitive. His father was a World War 2 veteran, and he himself served in the United States Airforce during Vietnam, though he would never claim himself a Veteran (he reserved this title for the combat veterans that he respected so dearly). When he left the service, he completed a degree and moved to the west, where he had always felt a calling. He found an immediate love with the Arizona strip and always said that Kanab, UT was the unfound gem of the west that we were to cherish before it was discovered. He served the U.S. once again with the National Park Service and later with the Bureau of Land Management, but bureaucracy never suited him so he became a general contractor and preserver of historic homes in Kanab, UT. It is hard to be a non-native in place were so many others have ties to the land and to the history, but Doug always felt a need to to protect this place that he felt so close to. He was active in local and national politics, he was adamant that renewable resources deserved to be paid attention to, and he was a man that believed that the middle class of America deserved to be represented and respected. He was a man of and by the people. His passion for doing good and right and honorably for all around him had no reigns. Loving life and loving people was his cause.
He spoke of the past little, living in the present was more important. And so he dedicated himself to his beloved wife, Claudia Brescia. It as if they had waited their lives to find each other and their love was immeasurable. He was a dedicated husband and step father to her two children, Stacy Cash and Nick Walzack and grandfather to their 5 children. In his former life, he had two children of his own, Sandra Dewitz and Brent Dewitz as well as two Step-children, Amy Dalton and Travis Dalton by his wife Mary Dewitz, with 6 more grandchildren. They too, felt the love that he was so capable of giving. He taught his children the value of laughter, of kindness, of empathy and love and of all the things in this world to cherish. He was not a perfect man, but in the immortal words of his favorite teachers, "Baby, be a simple kind of man."
Cremation services were arranged with Mosdell Mortuary.