Grace Elizabeth Geddes Marsden

Grace Elizabeth Geddes Marsden was born November 11, 1925, in Logan, Utah, to Joseph Arch Geddes, PhD, and Grace Woolley, RN. She graduated from Logan High, enrolled as an Aggie, and met her husband-to-be, William Wallace Marsden, in the “Tub” at Utah State—that was the “Temporary Union Building”–shortly after he returned from military service in New Guinea. They both graduated in 1947, married in the Logan LDS Temple on July 3, 1947, and began life together in Ogden, he as a civil engineer for the Utah Department of Transportation and she as a homemaker, at first, and mother of two boys.

Grace got a kick out of doing good. When son Bill turned eight, she became cub scout den leader (husband Bill was cubmaster). When son Blair’s baseball team needed a coach, she stepped to the plate. She served as Hillcrest Elementary PTA president (later as Ogden City’s PTA president), as relief society president and young women’s president in her LDS wards, and as Mia Maid leader (her favorite). She produced road shows in the Sixties. Forty years later, she and Bill served as Webelos den leaders (a favorite photo shows her playing in a mud puddle with the cubs). She loved “snitching” Thanksgiving turkey with grandkids and tapping with the “Dancing Grannies.”

Professionally, she served as a caseworker with troubled youth, first at the State Industrial School and later in the Davis County School District. At 50, she earned a Master of Social Work and Gerontology degree from the University of Utah. Always an avid scouter, she received recognition as one of Utah’s “Top Ten Women in Scouting” in 2010.  She took pride that like her husband, her sons and all her grandsons became Eagle scouts. She served as an LDS temple ordinance worker in the Salt Lake, Bountiful, Dallas and Seoul Temples. Embracing her heritage, she was a Daughter of the Utah Pioneers and a docent at the Whitaker Museum in Centerville. She won awards for her gardening everywhere she lived (her iris, in particular, are spectacular and now adorn many gardens). As the years advanced, she quilted and gave away over 500 baby blankets. She was the happiest person in each room she entered. She chose to be happy.

She passed peacefully on November 15, 2017, and is survived by her sons, William Geddes Marsden (Karla Knudsen) and Blair Geddes Marsden (Marilyn Wilde), and by grandchildren Darci Mayer (Scott), Kelley Marsden Bode (Cal), Ashley Wheeler (Justin), Ryan B. Marsden (Cherish), Taylor Anne Thompson (Drew), Katrina Bingham (Taylor), and Cameron W. Marsden. Her beloved grandson Eric Marsden died in 2014, shortly after his college graduation. Grace has 19 great-grandchildren and hundreds more who call her “Grandma Grace.”

A memorial service will be held at the Timberline LDS chapel in Lone Tree, CO, at 11:00 a.m. on December 2, 2017. Grace will be buried beside her husband in the Centerville, Utah cemetery, following a graveside service at 11:00 a.m. on December 5 (reception from 9:30-10:30 that morning at Russon Mortuary, 295 N. Main, Bountiful, UT).