Final Salute

Beloved friend, cousin, uncle, great-grandfather, grandfather, husband, and father Alma Carlyle Lawrence passed away peacefully at his Summit, Utah, home on April 28, 2023. He was blessed with a healthy, physically active life during all of his one hundred one years.
Alma was born in Summit on a cool Sunday morning in November 1921, the youngest son of Wilford and Ella Hulet Lawrence. He had many wonderful stories about growing up in Summit and attending the one-room school there during his primary years. He loved being raised on a small farm and watching plants and animals grow, and he loved the town of Summit.
By the time Alma was a teenager, the Depression was in full devastating force. His father worked long stretches of time away from home, and Alma’s two older brothers were already in the process of trying to find lives for themselves, so many responsibilities fell on Alma at a relatively young age.
After graduating from high school in Cedar City, Utah, Alma attended Branch Agricultural College (later SUU) there. When he realized that he would be required to provide military service during World War II, he chose to enlist in the US Navy rather than risk being drafted. After electing to serve with the “Seabees”-the Navy’s construction battalion-he finished his undergraduate degree at Iowa State University, earning a BS degree in engineering. He was then stationed on the island of Tinian in the Northern Mariana Islands where he helped construct and maintain runways, roads, housing, and service buildings. By assignment, he remained abroad in Guam for six months after the war ended.
Following the war Alma earned a second bachelor’s degree, this one in education from Utah State University. Alma’s younger sister Ilene also attended Utah State, and she tried for several months to interest Alma in dating her roommate, Mary King. When Alma was brushed off by the woman he was then dating, he finally told Ilene he’d like to ask Mary out. “Well,” Ilene said, “you’re far too late as usual. She left on an LDS mission more than a year ago and won’t be home for another seven or eight months.” Alma got Mary’s address and began writing to her. They fell in love, met each other for the first time in April 1953 and were married just over three months later in the Logan Temple.
In the meantime, Alma had begun teaching sixth grade at Parowan Elementary in southern Utah; he was also the acting principal of the school. Those were among the very happiest years of his professional career, and he always remained close to “his kids,” tracking their life milestones and delighting in their accomplishments.
Alma and Mary rented a home in Parowan during their first year of marriage; during their second, they rented another home in Summit. Alma had already started building a home in Summit next to the home of his parents, and after another year, the basement was completed, and he and Mary moved in. Their seven children would grow up in “the home that Dad built.”
By 1959 Alma had taken a different career path, one bound to his childhood interests and passions. He became office manager of the local ASCS office-a division of the US Department of Agriculture-in Cedar City. Consequently, he developed close friendships with many of the farmers and ranchers throughout Iron County; he loved the days when he was “out of the office,” meeting farmers or ranchers on their own land and reviewing their plans with them.
Inherently a communal soul with a strong sense of civic duty, Alma voluntarily gave back much to his small hometown. He helped restructure and rebuild its culinary and irrigation water systems. He led efforts to clean and fence its cemetery and to install a sprinkler system and plant grass there. For many years, he mowed the cemetery lawn and managed its watering schedule. And he served several years on the Summit Town Board. He also devoted many hours to the Boy Scouts of America, serving as scoutmaster for more than a decade, providing support to regional boards, and volunteering his engineering talents to help create the first roads, parking lots, and other facilities at Camp Thunder Ridge. He received a Silver Beaver Award for his lifetime service to Scouting.
Alma and Mary sometimes laughed about the election of 1960 when, immediately after returning from voting, they discovered that one had voted for Kennedy and the other for Nixon. Alma always respected his wife’s opinions-and her right to have different opinions than his own. Their children sincerely appreciated the thoughtful, comparatively broad-minded environment their parents created.
One thing both Alma and Mary agreed upon was the importance of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Over his lifetime Alma served devotedly in many positions in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including Sunday school teacher, bishop’s counselor, high priest group leader, high councilor, and stake clerk. He also served as bishop of the Summit Ward for nearly six years. For several years well into his nineties, Alma taught monthly lessons in his local priesthood quorum, supplementing them with handmade charts and other visual aids.
During 1985-86 Alma and Mary served together in the Billings Montana Mission, where they helped conduct and teach Institute classes. It had been Alma’s lifelong dream to serve a mission, an opportunity denied him earlier in his life following the war when he became responsible for caring for his aging parents.
Above all, however, Alma was a devoted father and husband. He loved each of his children individually, respecting their interests, talents, and dreams, and he encouraged and supported each accordingly. All seven learned firsthand the importance of a father’s genuine love, guidance, and nurturing.
When-less than ten years after their mission-Mary was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, Alma became her primary caregiver. For the next fifteen years, he patiently and devotedly assisted her in being her best self and doing all she was capable of doing at each stage of her disease. He was at her bedside holding her hand as she passed away.
During the last decade and a half of Alma’s life, he became a passionate reader. He especially loved reading books about the history of the Church of Jesus Christ and about American history. He also loved solving sudoku and jigsaw puzzles. And he loved watching Utah Jazz games and all BYU sports. At age ninety-eight Alma resumed a hobby he’d cultivated before his marriage, creating several original oil paintings. Most of all, Alma loved attending church meetings. The Sunday before he passed was the first Sunday in months that he’d not attended meetings.
In late 2021 Alma’s children hired Kristin Anderson, a caregiver who would visit Alma three or four times a week, to help with housework and other needs. Soon, however, the two fell in love; they were married in April 2022. For several months, Alma exuded the spirit of a man half his age, and all of his last year was brightened considerably by Kris’ loving encouragement, enthusiasm, and care.
Alma is survived by one great-great grandchild, eighty-two great-grandchildren, forty grandchildren, his wife Kris, and his seven children and children-in-law: Devon (Vicki), Cleon (Leah), Raelyn (Matt), Terri (Newell), Elaine (Doug), Steven (Louise), and Keith (Tracy). He was preceded in death by his five siblings, two great-grandchildren, and his first wife, Mary.
Funeral services will be held on May 5, 2023, at the Summit Ward chapel at 10am. Visitations will be held on May 4, 2023, from 6:30 to 8pm and from 8 to 9:30am in the Summit Ward Relief Society room immediately preceding the funeral service on May 5. The burial will be in the Summit Cemetery under the direction of Southern Utah Mortuary.

Published by Southern Utah Mortuary – Cedar City on May 2, 2023.

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