Beverly Nash

Beverly Bell Nash was born in Mink Creek, Idaho,’ on August 3, 1928. Beverly is the first born of Theo James and Edith Larsen Bell. This bright, energetic, precocious young girl was a gifted musician, whose skills at the piano and organ enriched the lives of her family, students, as well as the LDS wards and missions where she served. She left Mink Creek to live with her grandparents in order to attend Preston High School. It was there she met her lifelong love and companion, Brent Isaac Nash. A highlight of her high school years was being named queen of the “Famous Preston Night Rodeo”, astride her horse Champ.
Beverly graduated from Preston High School at age 16, worked as a legal secretary, and attended Utah State University in Logan, Utah prior to serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the Central Atlantic States Mission. Shortly after returning, she married Brent Isaac Nash in the LDS Logan Temple on August 3, 1950. She worked simultaneously as a resident dorm manager and mother to the first two of their five children, Scott and Julie, while Brent finished his studies at Utah State University.
After graduating from Utah State University in 1954, the family moved to Seattle, Washington, where Brent attended the University of Washington School of Dentistry. From their early days in Seattle, Beverly taught scores of piano students, sharing her appreciation and love of music for the next 60 years. Her accompaniments of Brent singing are among the most memorable of her musical contributions.
In Seattle, she gave birth to three more children, Marcus, Jeanmarie, and Rebekah. Over the years, she served in influential church leadership positions as president of the Relief Society, Primary, and Young Women’s organizations, contributing to the LDS Church’s growth in the Pacific Northwest. Her administrative skills were complimented by a perceptive and profound insight into individual hearts and the discernment to provide personal influence as needed. Her children remember Sunday fried chicken dinners with gravy and homemade German chocolate cake for each child’s birthday. All five children were married in an LDS Temple.
After all her children were married, Beverly and Brent were called to lead the Australia Sydney Mission from 1988 until 1991. They ministered to the mission and to the needs of over 300 missionaries. Back in the Pacific Northwest, she was called to serve as Matron of the Seattle Temple with her husband as Temple President from 1992 to 1995. Phasing into semi-retirement, she continued to teach piano and life lessons until Brent retired from his professorship at the University of Washington School of Dentistry in 2008.
Together, Beverly and Brent maintained lives of integrity, fixed and immovable in their faith in the living God. As a devoted mother, her children, from infancy through adulthood, received of her time and loving attention, especially appreciated through their interesting teen years.
She is survived by her husband, five children, 25 grandchildren, and 26 great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held at 11 am, Saturday, June 22, 2013 in the Centerville 5th Ward Chapel, 270 North 300 East, Centerville, UT., where a viewing will be held 9:30-10:30 a.m. prior to services. Interment will follow at the Mink Creek, Idaho Cemetery at 3 pm.