1917-2012



Something happened July 4, 1917. The U.S. had entered World War I just three months earlier. It was the day to celebrate our nation's independence, shoot off fireworks and, on a farm near Saint Angsgar in northern Iowa, it was the day Edwin Alvero Woodiwiss and Blanche Louella Simpson welcomed their third child into this world, Dorothy Louella.

Before Dorothy was three years old, they had moved to Amherst Junction, Wisconsin and then to Oakfield before she was thirteen. A couple years later, she met a cowboy from Jackson Hole, Wyoming who was visiting his father in Oakfield. His name was Arthur Willard.

After Arthur had returned to Wyoming, Dorothy told her folks she wanted to get married and they said she needed to wait until she was sixteen and so, four days after her sixteenth birthday, she boarded a Greyhound bus for Rock Springs, Wyoming.

Arthur and his mother, Edna, met her and they crossed the border into Utah, where there was no waiting period, and they were married in Linwood by an LDS bishop.

Arthur and Dorothy would have five children: Nancy Lee (Bob Vandegrift), Betty June who died at the age of two and one-half months, Gerald Arthur (Margaret Quigley and Dolores Guitar, Sharon Blanche (Clifford Brown and Allyn Wilson), Janice Diane (Dean Hawkins).

They lived in Wyoming, Wisconsin, Arizona, Oregon, Alaska, Utah, Nevada and after Arthur passed away in 1986, Dorothy lived in Idaho and Utah. Her fondest memories were living on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska.

Dorothy, her husband, Arthur and their youngest daughter were all baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Soldotna, Alaska in 1962. After their move to Utah, their marriage was solemnized in the Salt Lake Temple. At that time, they had two children sealed to them.

Dorothy peacefully died as she was preparing for bed on the evening of August 3, 2012 at the North Canyon Care Center in Bountiful, Utah.

She is survived by her sister, Rosalie Braend of Princeton, Minnesota, her children, 20 grandchildren, 53 great-grandchildren, and 19 great-greats, or some number like that.

Services will be held Friday, Aug. 10, 2012 at 1 p.m. at the Woods Cross 13th Ward, 1509 West 1500 South, Woods Cross, UT 84087, where a viewing will be held 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. prior to services. Interment will be at the Enterprise, Utah Cemetery Monday, August 13 at 12 p.m. Online guest book at www.russonmortuary.com. Special thanks to the staff of the North Canyon Care Center.