Alan Heap

1941 - 2022

Alan Franklin Heap

1941 - 2022

Salt Lake City, Utah-Alan Franklin Heap (August 7, 1941-September 2022) died in Salt Lake City from declining health. Alan was the third of four boys born in Tooele, Utah, to Jenny McCoy Heap and Ira Heap. The McCoys, recent immigrants from Ireland, named him after Franklin Roosevelt. Alan had a happy childhood and was often seen smiling to himself over some inner joy. In 1960 he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, where he was able to take classes at Napa Junior College. He entered the University of Utah in Biology eventually graduating with a B.S. Several years later after biology graduate school, he was accepted to the University of Utah Medical School. He graduated with his M.D. in 1977. Following medical school, he completed a residency in psychiatry and was board certified. Alan practiced psychiatry in Utah for over 40 years.

In addition, Alan was a veteran of the United States Airforce having served in the enlisted and officer ranks over two separate times of service. He achieved the rank of major in the medical corps of the United States Airforce.

Alan had many talents with musical composition as a favorite and was able to transfer some of his inner joy to creative musical expressions such as "Recuerdos de Maximiliano" (1990), a cantata conducted by Joel Rosenberg and orchestrated by Eric Arnal of Paris, France, featuring Joan Bauman. He also completed other song cycles, "The Wardrobe Mistress" (n.d.) and "Sandalphon" (ca. 2006), a romantic opera about St. Francis of Assisi. Among his numerous friends were well-known musicians such as Joel Rosenberg, Ricks Knudsen, Eric Arnal, and Maurice Abravenel, conductor of the Utah Symphony. Abravenel liked to have Alan drive him around.

Alan also composed works such as "The Lark of Umbria" (ca. 2006), and "When Hell Freezes Over," (as a student at the University). Alan was stationed near Dayton, Ohio for about four years, when he worked on his most ambitious prose work, "The Chasm," about the heroic Indian warrior Tecumseh" (unfinished). He also toured, delivering lectures such as "The Lost Chord," about his experiences with forgotten or submerged memories in patients under hypnosis.

Throughout his life, Alan cultivated a large number of friends. He was gregarious and stayed in contact with everybody. This included undergraduate friends from his days at the Newman Center at the University of Utah and the monks at the Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah. The monks had provided him a permanent room to help them screen potential candidates for monastic life. He was a lifelong devoted Roman Catholic and a member of Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Catherine of Siena Catholic parishes.

Alan had two older brothers, Arnold [Felix] (1934), Patrick (1939), and one younger brother, John, who died in 2021.

In the last 15 years of his life he selflessly devoted himself to his studies and teaching. His specialty was many subjects, and most importantly humor. He was a mentor/friend/family to several international students, who nicknamed him "Grandma Heap". He was generous, humble, spiritual, a humanitarian, an intellectual, and loving to all who had the good fortune to know him .