Carrie May Hollingshead

Our dear sister, mother, and grandmother Carrie May Sipe Hollingshead, born on January 7, 1930, in Blanding, Utah, peacefully passed away at her home on July 22, 2021, at the age of 91. Carrie was the daughter of Charles and Viola Sipe. She married Floyd Smith “Bud” Hollingshead on June 15, 1948, and they were sealed in the St. George Temple June 14, 1949.
Born in the harsh climes of Southeastern Utah during the Great Depression, Carrie learned from a young age to preserve and make-do, but also the importance of building, cultivating, and making the best of what life gave. She was blessed with honorable and generous parents whom she loved and adored, and siblings who remained close throughout their lives.
As a little girl she began to develop her eye for fashion and design, crafting clothes and cardboard houses for her sisters’ paper dolls. This sense of style carried through her life–she was always elegant and fashionable, taking care to present the best version of herself to the world. She had a lovely dignity, grace and poise to her which elevated everyone’s behavior when she was around.
During her teenage years, Carrie enjoyed a full calendar, including 4H Club, Pep Club, and the school band where she played the French horn. She had an enterprising mind and she developed a valuable business skill set in bookkeeping and typing. This work allowed her to save money to move to Salt Lake City, where she hoped to attend a business college. A sharp and hard-working student, she graduated early from West High School, and soon after met a handsome young Marine, Bud Hollingshead, and six months later they were married.
As newlyweds, Carrie and Bud headed to Barstow, California, where they set to work cultivating the desert, building a home and growing their family. The unpleasant aspects of the area soon faded as the couple became immersed in church activities, each other, and the five children which soon came along. Bud was called upon to complete a tour of duty in the Korean War, so the strong and resilient Carrie held down the fort and cared for the children for 14 months on her own.
In Barstow, Carrie was able to put her passion for design to work, drawing up plans for a new home for their family. She and Bud loved the rustic look, so they decided to use a large boulder as a divider between the great room and dining room. The whole family was involved in the hunt for the perfect rock, and when the boys found one shaped like a duck, they knew “the ugly duckling” was the one. Carrie always spoke fondly of this home and the boulder in her living room.
After years in Barstow, Bud’s work took the family back to Utah. Here Carrie continued her pattern of cultivating and developing. The couple took to purchasing, remodeling and subdividing homes and properties. Over the years, she and her dear companion owned multiple homes in Centerville, and five different condos at Canyon Road Towers in Salt Lake. With each property, Carrie would design thoughtful changes and improvements to floorplans and finishes, increasing the desirability of each property, and involving her children and grandchildren in the process.
Grandma Carrie understood the importance of linking the past to the present and made it her life’s work to compile and preserve the story of her family’s history. She was blessed with the gift of a sharp mind and a memory like a steel trap. The final years of her life were given to her posterity in the pursuit of this work. She left behind the fruits of her labor of love–the treasure of volumes of stories, images, records and genealogy of this great branch of the human family. This work carried her through the heartbreak of the years after her sweetheart’s passing, and indeed it was only a matter of days after she felt she had completed her history that she was finally ready to pass on.
Carrie leaves behind a daughter, Shauna K. White, and sons, John Hollingshead (Sally), Gregory Hollingshead (Jenny), Russell Hollingshead (Barbara), and Randall Hollingshead, as well as 26 grandchildren, 69 great-grandchildren, 1 great-great-grandchild, many nephews and nieces, and siblings Helen Galbraith, Martin Sipe, James Sipe. In addition to her dear husband and parents, she was preceded in death by infant daughter Karen Hollingshead, sister Jennie Phillips, infant brother Derland Sipe, brother Raymond Sipe, brother-in-law Ted Galbraith, sister-in-law Karen Sipe, and grandson Tanner Hollingshead.
Funeral services will be held on Saturday, July 31, 2021, at 11:00 am at the Centerville South Stake Center, 270 North 300 East, where a viewing will be held from 10:00-10:45 am prior to services. Interment will be at the Centerville City Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers it would make Mother happy if any donations are applied to her Carrie Hollingshead Genealogy Research Fund, C/O PO Box 309 Centerville, UT 84014.

Services will be lived streamed on Russon Mortuary & Crematory Facebook page and on Carrie’s obituary page at www.russonmortuary.com.