Gwen Myers Brown was born October 4, 1934, in Panguitch, Utah to James Levi Myers and Ora Excell Myers. She was the third of four children born to this couple. She was raised in Panguitch attending elementary and high school there. Her family moved to Salt Lake City the year before her graduation, so she spent her senior year of high school living with her grandmother, Ane Excell, and graduated from Panguitch High in 1952. We tried to turn her into a Rich Rebel, but she was still a loyal Panguitch Bobcat.
After graduation she moved to Salt Lake City to join the rest of her family and gained employment as a switchboard operator. It was while she was living there that she was introduced to an army buddy of her brother, Jim, named Lawrence Brown. They had just one date before dad was shipped overseas. Mom must have made a great impression on him during that first date because he wrote her faithfully the entire time he was stationed overseas and sent her many gifts from there which he referred to in his letters as “something to remember him by.” Upon his discharge from the army in October 1954, they continued dating. When dad offered her father a couple of young lambs in exchange for his daughter; they were engaged December 24, 1954. They were married and sealed six months later on June 24, 1955, in the Salt Lake Temple. We always teased mom she was a true “Johnny Lingo” wife because she was a two sheep woman. Four children were born to this union: Anelisa, Laurie, Krehl and Ryan.
After living in Salt Lake for the first five years of their marriage, they moved to Woodruff, Utah to help Grandpa Brown on the ranch. Mom worked right alongside dad on the ranch in the hay fields, irrigating and moving pipe, loading bales of hay to feed livestock, night herding sheep and cattle, raising many bum lambs and trailing cattle on the cattle drive. She was a great cook and provided many delicious meals for hay crews and hired men as well as her family through the years. Her homemade bread and fudge and divinity were amazing and her roast beef dinners with homemade mashed potatoes and gravy on Sundays after church were a favorite.
Mom and dad’s home was a haven to three of Gwen’s nephews who moved from the city and finished their schooling while living with them. They treated Randy, Kim, and Steve just like another one of their children and made sure they had the things they needed. Nieces and nephews from both sides of the family all loved coming to spend time on the ranch with Uncle Lar and Aunt Gwen.
Mom has always had a strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and made sure that we were at Church and Primary each week. She has served in Young Women’s, Sunday School, Relief Society and Primary in many different capacities. She served a stake mission with dad. After dad passed away in 1993, she served a mission as a temple worker in the Ogden Temple for number of years. She also completed two full time church missions in the New York Rochester and Missouri St. Louis missions. She loved her missions and gained many friends both young and old that she kept in contact with.
After a bad fall last March that broke her shoulder, Mom moved to a rehab hospital and then into an assisted living facility where she has resided the past eight months. Mom finished her journey here on earth on November 22, 2023, in Morgan, Utah at the age of 89. She truly exhibited what enduring to the end means.
She is survived by her four children: Anelisa (Brian) Bell, Laurie (Russ) Cornelison, Krehl (Tami) Brown, and Ryan (Kassie) Brown; nine grandchildren and twelve and a half great-grandchildren; a sister Elva Mortensen (Gaydon, deceased), and a brother Ned (Beverly) as well as her two brothers-in-law Kenneth Brown and Frank Memory, and many nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her husband, Lawrence; her parents, Levi and Ora; her brother Jim; and a grandson Kade Bell.
The family would like to thank Laurie Cornelison for her love and service to mom these past years. She made it possible for mom to stay in her own home until the last bad fall. We would like to thank the Family Tree facility and the crew from Enhabit Home Health for their love and care of our mom. She loved the people who helped her there and considered them her friends.
Funeral services honoring Gwen will be held Tuesday, November 28, 2023, at 11 a.m. Viewings will be held Tuesday before the service from 9:30-10:45 a.m. Viewings and services will be held at the Woodruff LDS Church in Woodruff, Utah. Interment in the Woodruff Cemetery.
