Myrna Jo Dudley Eardley 67, of Farr West, Utah, died May 17, 2009, at McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden, Utah, from conditions related to kidney failure due to polycystic kidney disease.
Her funeral was May 21 at Farr West, Utah.
Her life was sustained for the past nine years by kidney dialysis, after the loss, after only three months, of a transplanted kidney received from her sister, Teri Ann Dudley of Bozeman, Mont.
Myrna was born on Nov. 21, 1941, at Cut Bank, Mont. She was the second of five children of Devere Floyd and Jolanda Martha Ehlert Dudley. She spent her early years happily growing up on the wide-open plains of Montana, 17 miles northwest of Cut Bank near the Canadian border.
Winters were harsh, but made tolerable by the following summer’s ever-changing beauty and serenity with seemingly endless strips of grain stretching from the Dudley farm in all directions to the horizon with Northern Montana’s “Big Sky.”
She married Don Eardley, originally from Baker City, on June 6, 1967, at the Salt Lake City Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The two were introduced at a singles ward at the University of Utah.
At the time, both were graduates of Brigham Young University and employed in Salt Lake City. Myrna attended BYU from 1959 to 1963, graduating with a professional business major. After a brief first professional job with Boeing in Seattle, she returned to BYU to complete a second major in business education, preparing for a career she grew to love as a secondary teacher.
She taught business education and other subjects in three Utah secondary schools before putting her career on hold to become a stay-at-home mom. After her three kids were in school, she returned to teaching at a Logan, Utah, middle school where she taught reading until retiring in 1998 after a 22-year career.
Myrna and Don raised their family at Hyde Park, Utah, until 1998 when both retired from public education. They had since lived at Farr West, Utah.
Myrna’s first priority was always her family and friends. She made close friends readily in her career, around the hobbies she enjoyed – mostly involving arts, crafts and flowers – and through the service she rendered in organizations of the LDS Church that she loved.
She cared sincerely and deeply for others, and shared in a personal way in their triumphs and tragedies, whether it be individuals in her own family, friends or associates, family members said. Active listening and nurturing relationships always took precedence over other cares of the day.
Her interest in others was reciprocated in many wonderful ways. Over the nine years she was on dialysis, Myrna inspired and encouraged other patients, and exemplified how one can live richly and fully despite the challenges of a life on dialysis.
She was privileged to be dialyzed in 40 different facilities from her most recent center at Pleasant View, Utah, just five minutes from her home, to a “Dialysis at Sea” aboard a cruise ship to Alaska, to a dialysis center on a Blackfoot Indian Reservation in Montana and one in Salzburg, Austria.
The family expressed appreciation to all of the dialysis professionals who so capably assisted her over the years.
Survivors include her husband, Don; a son, David, of Westminster, Colo.; daughters and sons-in-law, Krista and Todd Magleby of Layton, Utah, and Kari and Todd Wynne of Aurora, Colo.; three grandchildren, Walker, Abby, and Grace Magleby and one soon-to-be-born granddaughter, Kylie Wynne; a brother, Jim Dudley of Palmdale, Calif.; sisters, Diana Croft of Cut Bank, Mont., and Teri Dudley of Bozeman, Mont.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Floyd and Jolanda Dudley; and her brother, Ken Dudley.
Online condolences may be sent to the family at: www.lindquistmortuary.com.
Used with permission from: Baker City Herald, Baker City, Oregon, June 03, 2009
Transcribed by: Belva Ticknor