Ira Newsome

Ira Angus Newsome – one of the kindest, gentlest, most patient souls you would ever have the privilege to know – died in his sleep August 20, 2007. He was 94. Born in Salt Lake City on April 15, 1913, Ira was the eldest child of William Angus Newsome and Vivian Hendricks Newsome. From the time he could wield a hammer and shoulder a load, he was an industrious lad, working numerous odd jobs to help keep his family afloat during the Depression. A graduate of West High School, Ira attended the University of Utah and worked at Beneficial Life Insurance Co., where he was employed for more than 40 years. Upon his retirement from Beneficial, he went to work for the Utah State Tax Commission, where he worked well into his 80s. A devout member of the LDS Church, Ira served in the British England Mission in 1934. He served on the Scouting board of the church’s Young Men Young Women program in the 1960s, volunteered in the Bountiful and Salt Lake temples and served a family history mission with his wife in 1993. Active in the Boy Scouts of America since 1926, Ira earned the rank of Eagle and later the Silver Beaver award, and served numerous leadership positions, including a committee that devised guidelines for the court of honor. He was the scoutmaster at the 1957 BSA jamboree at Valley Forge. He served his nation in the Army in Korea during World War II. Throughout his life, he planted large vegetable gardens, proudly sharing the bounty with his family and neighbors. Among his final words was a plea to “water the tomatoes and corn.” Ira married Maisie Cordner on July 31, 1939, in the Salt Lake LDS Temple. After the war, he built his new family a home on north Main Street in Bountiful, where he would live the rest of his life. A few years after Maisie and their eldest daughter, Carla, died in a traffic accident, Ira married Hannah Louise Matkin Israelsen on Aug. 30, 1968, in the Salt Lake Temple. Ira loved travel and the outdoors, taking his family on annual excursions to the woods and the national parks. In their “golden years,” he and Louise traveled extensively, including stops in Great Britain, Italy, France, Germany, Alaska and Hawaii. Ira is survived by two daughters, Jeralyn Morrison of Provo, and Barbara Devan Pack of West Bountiful; five stepchildren, Anne Hartle of Ivins, Terri Mike Willey of Bountiful, Bruce Israelsen of Bountiful, Craig Israelsen of Tempe, Ariz., and Brent Rebecca Walsh Israelsen of Salt Lake City; 22 grandchildren; and 32 great-grandchildren; and sister, Zora Anderson of Ogden. He is preceded in death by his parents, wife Maisie; daughter Carla; brothers, Paul Newsome, William “Bill” Newsome; and sister, Faye Schaar. Funeral services will be held Friday at 11 a.m. in the Bountiful 27th Ward chapel, 1145 N. 200 East. A viewing will be held on Thursday from 6-8 p.m. at Russon Brothers Mortuary, 295 North Main, and Friday at the church from 9:45 to 10:45 a.m.