Diane Denning Newren

The Life of a Great Woman

In Loving Memory of a Spiritual Giant, my Mother and my Friend, and my Superhero: Diane Denning Newren
by Nancy Newren

Alliterative names are those given to superheroes. My mom, named Diane Denning, was a superhero.

One day my sister, Deborah, and my cousin, Sam Atwater, took Mom to an Xmen movie. They were explaining to my mother the story to catch her up before the movie. At some point my mother told them, “I read the comics.” Yeah, my mom was super cool too.

Her origins began on March 18, 1954, born to Gary and Rose Denning to a humble, loving, and – I’m sure – very loud home in southern Utah. They enjoyed many camping trips, boating outings, and swimming adventures with licorice stuffed into swimsuits. Diane loved to read, so her Mom banned books at the dinner table and forced them to talk to each other. Grandpa (their father) would tell them not to lick the cow licks (Gross!), but Mom and her siblings loved to pick apples from the trees and how else were they to get their lick of salt without going back inside? So while their mom and dad weren’t watching, they licked the cow licks between bites of apples. Her dad was her hero: one time when she was little, she was climbing a fence to go play when a rattle snake popped up threateningly in front of her. She froze and her siblings got her Dad. That’s when my Grandpa Gary walked up to my mother, told her not to move, and shot that snake. Years later Phil, Diane’s older brother, attempted to teach her to drive. But when the teacher bails out of the car and the student is still able to get the car to safety, well, the student has become the master.

Figure 1: Diane and Edward's wedding announcement 1976

Diane married the love of her life, Edward Newren, on September 1, 1976 in the Salt Lake Temple for time and all eternity, and became Diane Newren. (I had to calculate their year of marriage because Mom and Dad always joked every year that they’d only been married five happy years. They thought this was great fun, while us siblings thought the joke got old, well so did our parents, and Mom and Dad got a great kick out of it.) Mom always looked after Dad her whole life.

Figure 2: 1992 family photo. back row: Elona, Elijah, Liza. Front row: Edward, Benjamin, Diane, Deborah, Nancy

Diane and Edward had six children, who lived past infancy, and an ever changing house: including adding a full upper and basement addition complete with covered deck and Mom’s sewing room, which Mom’s Father-in-law Alfred Leon Newren helped her build. Occasionally her father helped too, but as the fourth child, I remember hours spent watching Mom and her father-in-law continuously transform our home. Later, my sister’s, Elona’s, husband Mike, helped Mom finish the basement of our new home which we moved into when I was 17. It was this house that my mother died in. But first she filled it!

Our home was filled with pumpkins and makeup for Halloween, three fruit trees, peaches and cream, the same home-baked meals and lots of cereal, long camping adventures, Christmas breakfast and presents from Santa (Mom never stopped believing in Santa), Nintendo, computers, sick tents, soccer (which mom supported us in but rarely came to our games because she’d go hoarse from the screaming!), sewing (sometimes against our will!), music, games and laughter, movies and Dad’s homemade pizza with root beer floats, and things spiritual. Mom made our house a wonderful home.

Figure 3: One of our many camping adventures 1988! Left to right: Diane Newren, Lora Thompson, Liza, Elijah, Elona, and Nancy Newren, Nichole Thompson

Mom believed strongly in her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. With faith never wavering she appealed to the Lord constantly for her family and friends. Her quest for spiritual knowledge blessed the lives of her family and friends. After her death, my little sister Deborah Alston found a list of all the people Mom had been teaching spiritual things and where they’d left off. She blessed, and sometimes used her strong will, to give her children their strong testimonies of their Savior too. All of her married children have been sealed in the temple. Her friends remember her lessons and testimony. If I had to pick one scripture that encapsulates my mother’s strong-willed testimony it would be John 11:20-27, where Jesus went to Mary and Martha after Lazarus had died:

Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.
Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.

Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.

Mom loved to talk and laugh. Her laugh filled our home with joy. Mom loved talking so much that she and one of her younger sisters, Aunt Tish Cox, once (that I know of) went to a restaurant for lunch, and then stayed for dinner. She loved to laugh so much that she loved to tell the story of my brother’s, Zeke’s, pranks on her, and she never got mad at him for them (though one did annoy my father quite a bit). But more than talking and laughing, Mom loved to listen to our stories: the tale of her loved ones’ days. Mom wasn’t always an active part of our lives, but she was an ever constant presence, one we could always turn to and come to, and tell her the funny stories, the sad and frustrating stories, the stories of our lives. And Mom was always a listening ear, frequently giving her strong-willed opinionated advice, but always listening. Near the end of her life I told her the plan for the next ten years of my life. Then Mom told everyone, including complete strangers, my life plan, and then would say, “Isn’t that a wonderful plan?!” I loved my mom.

Mom supported us in our dreams, sometimes it took some convincing, but she always came around. She helped her husband and all of her children achieve Bachelor’s degrees (with one to go), and three of her children (so far) have earned advanced degrees in math, entertainment arts and engineering, and medicine. And that’s not counting her children’s spouses whom she also supported in achieving degrees and advanced degrees, and I’m sure many more degrees from grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Which I always thought was ironic considering that Mom was a college drop-out. She dropped out to marry my dad.

Mom was a woman of her word. She sent, supported, and wrote every week the four of her children who served full-time missions. Before leaving on my mission I made her promise she wouldn’t die while I was gone, and whilst I was away, Mom also promised Deborah she would watch her new baby, Rose, when the baby came, while Deborah finished PA school. I wondered each week on my mission if this letter would be the last from my mom, but I needn’t have worried: Mom kept her promises, including watching Rose.

Figure 4: Nancy Newren and Diane Denning Feb 2018, Nancy's homecoming breakfast.

Her last year on Earth, I got to help take care of Mom and Rose. We even lived in St. George for a month in a tiny three-bedroom condo with five of us plus visitors. We went swimming and taught Rose who was five-months-old to hold her breath, went to the splash park where Rose learned to love to splash, St. George is also where I started helping Rose to walk (She loved to walk!). We ate ice cream and popsicles, bought decorative pillows, and watched a lot of HGTV.

Diane didn’t want to leave us, especially I think her husband, children, and her grandchildren, and all her friends she was teaching spiritual things. But Diane knew the scriptures and knew: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Ecc 3:1). She said her goodbyes to her family. I got to witness the goodbyes to some of her children and grandchildren. They were loving, full of tender sweetness and care. She imparted her wisdom and love, urging all to be steadfast in Christ, and took pictures with her family with medical contraptions hanging from her. God always answered Mom’s prayers, including Mom’s desire to stay mobile. She only became reliant on others the last week or so of her life.
When it was her time to die, Mother joined her father (her hero), her sons Benjamin and Daniel, her beloved parents-in-law, and loads of loving family members in spirit paradise on October 18, 2017, while surrounded here on Earth by her daughters, mother, husband, two of the flower cousin granddaughter babies (Lily Egbert and Rose Alston), and her sister, Farah Thompson. She was surrounded by many of the people whom she loved the very most in the whole wide world.

Diane is missed (the obituary term is “survived”) by six of her beautiful children (Elona and Michael “Mike” Rohde, Elijah and Deborah Marie Newren, Elizabeth and Jared Egbert, Nancy Newren, Deborah and Edward Alston, and Ezekiel Newren), sixteen grandchildren (Michael, Joshua, Nathaniel, and Charlie Rohde; Elizabeth, Rebecca, Sarah, Paul, Keren, Rachel, and Hannah Newren; Caleb, Daniel, Ruth(ie), and Lily Egbert; and Rose Alston), her mother Wealthy Rose King Denning, all of her siblings (Phil Denning, Tish Cox, Tamra Dodge, and Farah Thompson), her wonderful loving husband Edward Paul Newren, many future grandchildren, lots of extended family members, and several dear friends. Mom loved her family and friends with all her heart, mind, and soul. Just as she loved her God.

If there is one thing Mom knew, and she knew a lot!, Mom knew that Christ is the Savior of mankind and that all who come to Him will not only live again, but live again in love and with our families forever. She knew that the pain and sorrow from death does not and will not last forever. That all the sorrows from this life – grief, sin, tragedy, hurt, illness, and all of the etceteras – are swallowed up in the joy of Christ when we come to Him as individuals and as families. That one day we will be united as a family forever through our faith in Jesus Christ.

Mom wasn’t perfect, but she sure tried to be. I forgave my mom and my mom forgave me. So even though we didn’t always live perfectly together, we always loved each other, and Mom always loved us. She always took care of us as she thought best, and boy, did we have some great adventures together!

I have one final story to end this tale, though I’m reminded of what John the Beloved said of Christ: “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen” (John 21:25). So it is with my mother.

Here is my last story: When I was little I loved to sing long and loud. It annoyed and bothered some people, including some of my peers, but my mother loved it. I know this not because she wrote, “Nancy, You sing beautifully. Love, Mom & Dad,” in the cover of my Children’s Hymnbook which she gave me for Christmas in 1991, but because of her actions. Because one time while we were on a long car drive in the camping van on our way to another wonderful camping adventure, I was, as usual, singing, and had been for a long while. I was the youngest at the time (probably three- or four-years-old) and my three older siblings begged my mom, “Please! Make her stop!” After much pleading I heard my mother say firmly (probably to be heard over the car, my singing, and my siblings pleading), “Nancy!”

I stopped singing, my siblings stopped pleading (looking hopeful I am sure!), and I, with my head down, sheepishly said, “Yes?”

Then Mom said, “You keep on singing as much and as loud as you want.”

My head popped up, my smile filled my face, and I answered that call by singing on the top of my lungs, over the moans of my siblings who threw blankets over their heads, so my mother could hear me singing!

In the rear-view mirror I saw my mother smile.

Figure 5: 1978 Diane Denning Newren with flowers she'd gathered from her mother Rose Denning's home