Anna Laker Williams

It came as no surprise to any of us that Anna Corneliua Laker Williams died while starting a batch of barbecue beef for the family reunion. She always found ways to serve, most especially her family, which was gathering to celebrate her life - and enjoy the beef -- in a quiet celebration of 80 years of unyielding devotion. Instead, we gather in sorrow for a death that evidently involved a quick problem with a great heart on June 14, 2007.
But there is abiding gratitude, not just sorrow, for a life of faithfulness. There's gratitude for the homemade peach ice cream and evening views at Sunset point and of watching together pink clouds over Utah Lake , for the Chronicles of Narnia shared with grandchildren and birthday cards crafted by hand, for sunscreen and hats, for Fantasia and Snow White, and for tattered sack lunches, homemade grape juice and poached eggs on toast. Of course, there's remembrance of Book of Mormon readings by camping light, family prayers, and followed promptings on lonely nights. And there's awe for 31 years of resolute, cheerful determination following the death of her husband, Clyde Henry Williams, that Christmas season in 1975. Some build buildings. Some write poems. Mom built families - saved one, in fact -- and wrote the face of God onto our hearts. As a widow, she saw five children serve missions to foreign lands and five married in the temple. Then, she served one herself. She served faithfully in many callings from Relief Society President to ward bulletin coordinator, which she produced in the 1990s on a Royal typewriter. She loved classical music, the smell of lilac and the Teton Mountains . And service. She committed just Wednesday to take a neighbor to a hospital appointment.
Born on September 2, 1927, in St. Charles , Idaho , as the youngest of five children to Daniel and Dora Hemmert Laker, Mom lived most of her young life in the Depression in Salt Lake City , where she graduated from West High School in 1944. She married veteran Clyde in the Salt Lake Temple in 1949. She received a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Utah . They settled into South Orem in 1961 where he ran a pharmacy, and she lived in the same house until her death.
Anna is survived by one brother, Bryan Laker, Salt Lake City , and her five children, Mark (Linda) Williams, Orem ; Paul (Leslie) Williams, Lehi; Wade (Jennie) Williams, Manteca , Calif. ; Mary (Mark) Bennett, Hyde Park; and Lane (Laurie) Williams, Rexburg , Idaho . She has 22 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. The funeral is scheduled for Tuesday, June 19, at 11 a.m. at the Cherry Hill 3rd Ward Building , 1650 South 200 East, Orem . A viewing will be held Monday at 6 to 8 p.m. and Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. in the same building. Arrangements have been handled through Serenicare Funeral Home - www.serenicare.com. Internment will follow the funeral at the Provo Cemetery. For us left behind, we count on faith for a resurrection morning. It won't surprise us if she cooks barbecue - or churns six quarts of ice cream -- for the grand celebration that evening.