Arlea Walker Washburn November 12, 1927 ~ February 24, 2022

Arlea Walker Washburn passed away peacefully on February 24, 2022, from causes incident to age, surrounded by family.
Arlea was born on November 12, 1927, in Breen, CO to Jesse Lorenzo Walker and Annetta Eaton Walker. She was the fifth of ten children.
She loved her parents and siblings and fostered and nurtured a close and connective relationship with them throughout her life.
In 1946, at the tender age of 18, she married a handsome young man, recently returned from serving in World War II.
Lark Washburn was, and is, the love of her life. They were blessed with seven children.
Her pregnancies and deliveries were always difficult, but her love for her children was easy and a blessing to them.
She was a faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In the early years of her marriage, she was active in the church and a good example to her less active husband.
He caught the vision, and their marriage was sealed in the Salt Lake Temple in 1954.
Over the years, she served in many positions of responsibility in many wards including Primary, Young Women, and Relief Society President.
While Arlea’s natural inclination would have been to stay close to home and family, she and Lark served three missions for the Church.
Their first mission was to the Spain Seville Mission. They were the first LDS missionaries in Uganda, Africa for their second mission. Their third mission was in the Fiji Suva Mission.
All three were challenging missions and tested her faith, and impacted her health, but she often told stories of the miracles, blessings, and growth that occurred while being in the service of God and her brothers and sisters throughout the world.
She was quiet and reserved, but she had a lasting impact on the many people she served in her life.
Arlea was an artist; she enjoyed painting, wood carving, stitching, and creating unique walking sticks out of saguaro cactus embedded with turquoise.
She loved music and played the piano beautifully, almost exclusively by ear. She sang in church choirs including ‘The Singing Mothers’ and loved listening to country music.
In later years, she loved to travel to see the ocean with her daughters.
She and Lark built many homes that they designed and landscaped together. Lark spoiled her with clothes and cars she enjoyed but didn’t require to be happy.
They enjoyed a close, long-term relationships with friends and family and enjoyed hosting family gatherings of all kinds, almost always with a work project or two.
She was famous for her chocolate chip cookies, Uravan beans (with a secret ingredient which she never revealed, even at the end) slick’s gravy, popcorn balls, sugar cookies, brownies, and most memorably, her homemade white bread baked in Hi-C cans.
Oh, how her family loved those unique round loaves of homemade bread.
In her later life, she enjoyed quilting, working on word searches, crossword, and jigsaw puzzles, and watching tennis.
Right up to the end of her life she wasn’t one to sit still.
She had to be about her business – and that business was making hundreds of quilts and donating them to women’s and homeless shelters, Primary Children's Hospital, and LDS Humanitarian Services. She enlisted lots of volunteer labor, mostly from Lark, Penelope, Paula, and Peggy.
She is survived by Penelope (Duane) Hanberg of Vernal, UT, Mike L (Debra) Washburn, currently of Warwick, England, Paula Hill of Mesa, AZ, Peggy (Russell) McVea of Millcreek, UT, and Stephen Lark (April) Washburn of Murray, UT.
She is also survived by 18 grandchildren, 36 great-grandchildren, and six great-great-grandchildren. She is survived by four siblings.
She is preceded in death by her husband Lark Washburn, sons J Ballard and Guy Kelly, parents, five siblings, and one grandson.
She was buried next to Lark in her hometown of Blanding. Graveside services were at the Blanding Cemetery on March 5, 2022.