Sarah Edith Wight Baxter, 101, of Union died Feb. 2, 2008, at her home that she loved and had lived in for 65 years.
Her funeral will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Union. Burial will be at the Union Cemetery.
Edith was born on Oct. 19, 1906, at Brigham City, Utah, to Jesse Lowen and Helen Mabel Hansen Wight. When she was 12 her mother died in the great flu epidemic of 1919. As a child she lived briefly in northern Idaho where she had moved with her family in a covered wagon.
She was a 1925 Union High School graduate. She became a schoolteacher and first taught at North Powder School for two years. She then taught one year in a one-room school at Ladd Canyon.
Those teaching years became one of her fondest memories. They ended soon after her marriage. She and William Bowthorpe Baxter were married at the LDS Temple in Salt Lake City on Aug. 11, 1927.
They spent the rest of their lives at Union except for the short time they spent in Hillsboro and Portland where Bill first worked in a department store and then in the shipyards after World War II began. He then went to Utah, still working for the military.
At that time Edith returned with her family to Union. She secured a loan and bought the house where they lived for the rest of their lives.
The couple celebrated their 62nd anniversary three months before Bill’s death in October of 1989.
Edith continually served in the various auxiliaries of the LDS Church. She also served in the Parent-Teachers Association and in many other community organizations. She was a member of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers.
For years she sold fresh milk and homemade bread. She loved to garden. She sewed, crocheted, wrote stories and poems and memorized and recited many poems and stories.
Her children and grandchildren will remember her as “the great storyteller.” Next to her family, her greatest love was of poetry, good literature and learning.
She was quietly kind to all, her family said. If ever someone showed up in her neighborhood in need, be it cat, dog or human, they were invited in and fed and cared for. Over a period of years, she also took in many foster children. Grandma’s door was always open to the grandchildren and all of their friends as well, her family said.
Survivors include her children, Kendall Baxter, Diane and Jack Bowen and Don and Joyce Baxter of Union, Jerry and Janice Baxter of Medical Springs, Chrisanne and Richard Hindman of Baker City and Jacque and Charles Carris of Rigby, Idaho; 44 grandchildren; 100 great-grandchildren; and 22 great-great-grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by her parents; brothers and sisters; her husband, Bill; a son, Bryce; a grandson, Duane; and three great-grandchildren.
Loveland Funeral Home of La Grande is in charge of arrangements.
Used with permission from: Baker City Herald, Baker City, Oregon, February 6, 2008
Transcribed by: Belva Ticknor