Dave Grocott

1929 - 2025

Dave Grocott

October 18, 1929 - February 13, 2025

David John Grocott passed away on February 13, 2025, in Longview, Wash., at the age of 95. He was a loving husband and father, a captain, forester, singer, and punmaker.

Dave was the principal at several Longview elementary schools, served as a longtime leader at the Longview Community Church, and was a dedicated volunteer in the Longview community. He is survived by his loving wife of 72 years, Mellicent Elaine (Becker) Grocott.

Born in Kelso on October 18, 1929, just in time for the great stock market crash, Dave got to work quickly. He milked the cow at his family's home on Pine Street in Longview before heading to classes at Columbia Valley Gardens Elementary. As a young man, he cut meat at the Kelso Piggly Wiggly, maintained railroads (a "gandy dancer") for Weyerhaeuser, and ferried guests across Spirit Lake to the Harmony Falls Lodge. He was a teacher, and then a principal at Longview's Robert Gray, Mint Valley, and Northlake elementary schools, where he pitched kickballs at recess, presided over model rocket launches and introduced kids to outdoor school at Cispus Learning Center. He operated salmon charter boats out of Ilwaco, Washington. -- originally a "summer job" between school years -- for 35 years.

Dave embraced all those jobs, though his pride was in providing for his family. He married his lifelong love, Millie, in 1953.

Dave's parents and Millie's parents were all present in the area prior to Longview's founding in 1923, ensuring them excellent seats at 23 Club dinners. Dave and Millie built the home on Sunset Way where they raised children Laura (Floodeen), Beth (Sammons), John, and Jeff. Dave dragooned his kids for work parties to sand and paint elderly charter boats and roused them out of bed on Saturdays to gather cords of firewood ('warms you twice -- once when you haul it and once when you burn it').

Dave graduated from RA Long High School in 1947 and Western Washington State College in Bellingham. He received a Master's degree from the Colorado State College of Education at Greeley and enlisted in the US Army, serving as a sergeant in the Korean War.

By then, his lifelong passions were set. Dave took to the water as a six-year-old, rowing his parents' dingy around Mud Bay in Olympia, eventually trading up to a 50-ton captain's license and a 40-foot charter boat. Walks in the woods with his father-in-law, Andrew Becker, nurtured a lifelong love of forestry. A half-miler in high school and college track, Dave would spend most mornings jogging at the shoulder of Sunset Way, three decades before Nike advised us to "Just Do It."

After Dave's retirement from the Longview School District, he loved to travel with Millie -- across the US and Europe, and from Russia and Estonia to China, Australia, and New Zealand. Dave and Millie enjoyed driving up the Alcan highway to remote Alaska; Dave took three more trips to Alaska aboard 30-foot fishing boats that he helped son John pilot to Cordova via the Inside Passage and Gulf of Alaska. Dave took great joy in recounting the latest doings and wanderings of his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Dave served his church and community. He was a leader of Boy Scouts of Longview's Troop 514 and a founding member of Longview's Morning Rotary Club. He was a deacon and a director at the Longview Community Church, as well as the volunteer caretaker (for more than 50 years) of an 80-acre tree farm near Silver Lake that was donated to the church in 1965. Dave sang baritone in the church's Temple Singers choir for more than 60 years and participated in 100 of the church's holiday performances of Handel's Messiah, missing just one concert to stay home to battle a flue fire in the wood stove.

He is preceded in death by his parents, John Henry Grocott and Madeline Grace (Archer) Grocott, and by his siblings, Dawn James and Betty Wilson, and his beloved daughter, Laura.

He is survived by Millie; his sister, Sandra Kure Shaw; children, Beth (Milton Sammons), John (Cheri), and Jeff (Barbara); son-in-law, Eric Floodeen; and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

A celebration of life will be forthcoming. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests supporting Longview Community Church's scholarships for Christian ministry students, as Dave did.