Elga Elisabeth Jessen Layton

Elga Elisabeth Jessen Layton finished her turn on Earth on April 30, 2024, in Farmington, Utah,  surrounded by her nine children.

Elga’s journey began on July 19, 1937, when according to her sister Gertude, she was delivered by a stork. Her family lived in Flensburg, Germany, a charming town along the shores of the Baltic Sea, just five kilometers from Denmark. Her parents, Karl and Katharine Schwichtenberg Jessen provided a loving home for her and for her older siblings Dora, Kalli and Getrude.

Her family endured many hardships while the second World War was raging across Europe, however, they often felt the Lord’s love and guiding hand through those difficult times.

 In November 1953, when Elga was sixteen, she and her parents desired to join other family members in the United States. They sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and entered by way of Ellis Island, traveled via Greyhound bus to Centerville, Utah, where her Aunt and their sponsors Dale and Maxine Randall lived. Elga attended and graduated from Davis High School, where she met and made many lifelong friends.

Elga married Ronald Dean Layton in the Salt Lake City Temple on January 24, 1958, and during the following twenty years were blessed with nine children. They taught their children the gospel of Jesus Christ and allowed them, with guidance, to govern themselves. They were blessed with forty-three grandchildren and fifty-three great-grandchildren. Elga found it an honor to raise kind and good children in a home that was filled with love, laughter, joy, and tears.

Most of her days were filled with homemaking chores, but she always found time for her friends, especially with her best friend, Jayne Jones, on their morning Diet Coke run. She loved serving in her church callings, and doing some of her favorite things like reading a good book, doing simple knitting and stitching, shopping, watching a good movie and writing family histories.

Elga was very proud of her German heritage, and loved speaking in her native tongue. In 1972, she became a United States citizen and each time she stepped into a voting booth, saluted a flag, or sang a patriotic song, she felt gratitude for her citizenship. She echoed the words found in Psalms, “My Joy Is Full.”

Elga loved and appreciated her extended families from both the Layton, Cook, Ross, and Jessen sides.

Elga was blessed to be a member of the Centerville Literature, Music, and Art club for nearly forty years. Each member became her friend that she loved and admired.

She and Dean presided over the Canada, Winnipeg mission from 1997-2000. She enjoyed cooking for the many missionaries that came through the mission home and appreciated their love and devotion to the work of the Lord. She also loved the senior missionaries that became her good friends. They were also able to serve in a mission in the Thailand, Bangkok mission. The mission, though it was short, changed their lives forever.

Elga looked forward to the time she could return to her heavenly home to be reunited with her eternal companion, Dean, and to greet her parents, her Oma Jessen, her siblings, and her aunt Elga, who was her namesake and second mother. She hoped to be able to embrace her angel grandson's Andrew Willis Layton and Preston Scott Gardner, who returned to Heaven soon after their births, her mother and father in-law, Willis and Elma Layton, plus many souls she loved on this Earth.

We would like to thank the staff at Covington Senior Living for their attentive care and love for our mom the last two years. They always treated her and our families with such kindness and respect.

Elga is survived by her five sons and their wives, Richard and Cami (Robinson), David and Sheri (Robinson), Lynn and Robyn (Arbuckle), Bryan and Kandis (Leishman), and Matt and JeriAnn (Dudman), and her four daughters and their spouses, Kathy and Rick Barton, Christy and Sean Cosper, Lisa and Shane Christensen, and Laura and Preston Gardner. 

A funeral service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Monday May 6, 2024, at the Centerville South Stake Center, 270 North 300 East, Centerville, Utah, with a viewing prior to the services from 9:30-10:30 a.m. A viewing will also be held on Sunday, May 5, 2024, from 6:30-8:00 pm at Russon Mortuary, 295 North Main Street, Bountiful, Utah.

Services will be streamed live on the Russon Mortuary Live Facebook page and on this obituary page. The live stream will begin 10-15 minutes prior to the services and will be posted below.