Carma Vera Mathews Brimley

On Dec. 2, 2017, Carma Vera Mathews Brimley passed from this life into the waiting arms of family and friends whom she loved and dearly missed. Our dear mother was born Jan. 5, 1927, in SLC, UT, the youngest child of Bruce Reid Mathews and Vera Elizabeth Monroe Mathews. Mom grew up in the Wells Ward area in Salt Lake City, and attended Hawthorne Elementary, Irving Jr. High, South High School (go Cubs!), and the University of Utah.
She had a happy childhood playing with friends on Hollywood Avenue. Her father was a teacher at West High School which allowed for summers in Brighton. While her parents cleaned and maintained cabins, mom picked wildflowers, trapped squirrels with a box propped on a stick and ran messages up to the cabins of many Salt Lake notables such as Emma Lucy Gates, because there was only one telephone in the area.
Carma loved to travel to Scipio, UT to visit cherished Mathews, Monroe, Robins and Memmott relatives. She was proud of her roots and treated her children to many colorful Scipio stories.
Mom remained loyal to the friends she made at South High School throughout her life, and at the age of 80, even organized a class reunion. Carma enjoyed attending the "U," where she studied homemaking and textiles. She used these skills to create many costumes, clothes, and hats from "nothing" for her family.
Mom could play a rousing Sousa march on the accordion, and was a math whiz, which came in handy while working as a cashier at Makoff's in Salt Lake City.
Our dad, Richard Dahlen Brimley, who had just returned home from serving in WWII in Germany, first spotted mom sitting in the window box at church, with the sunlight hitting her blond hair. Their fabled first date was to a Valentine's Day dance. "Dick and Carma" were married on May 6, 1949, in the Art Barn near the U of U campus. Their first apartment was on Gregson Avenue. With more kids on the way, they moved to a new home in Rose Park, and then in 1959 they built a home in Bountiful, to eventually welcome six children.
Mom was an incredible organizer, a meticulous housekeeper, a creative homemaker, and a devoted mother who raised her children with a firm, loving hand. Her children left for school with faces washed, hair combed, and clothing starched and pressed. The kitchen was the center of the home, where mom sang and danced to "Hello Dolly" and the music of Barbara Streisand, while making dinner. The kitchen table was her podium, where she taught her children many valuable lessons and nurtured their talents. Her creativity shined for nine years while serving as a Boy Scout Den Mother for her three sons.
Mom's legacy of hard work, thrift, creativity, practicality, and the love of music lives on in her posterity. For many years mom and dad hosted joyful family parties with an abundance of food and gifts, and took the family on vacations. Mom and dad loved to dance to Big Band music at the Rainbow Rendezvous or Lagoon. Later they enjoyed attending the Utah Symphony. Now mom and dad are dancing the "South High Drag" in heaven. We love you, Mom, and miss you more than we can say.
Carma is survived by her children Richard Jr. (Marla); Rhonda (Steve) Greenwood; Todd (Kim); Peggy (Jerry) Wilson; Jeff Brimley; Sandra (Steve) Graves; 17 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband Richard D. Brimley, baby daughter Edith Joy; sister Edith Mathews Nordquist and brother Wilbur (Bill) Reid Mathews.
A viewing will be held 6 to 8 p.m., Friday, Dec. 8, 2017 at Russon Mortuary, 295 North Main, Bountiful. Funeral services are at 11 a.m., Saturday, Dec. 9, at the Bountiful 31st Ward Chapel, 585 East Center Street, where a viewing will be at 10 a.m. prior to the services. Interment is at Bountiful City Cemetery, 2224 South 200 West.