Families Are Forever

Myron and Lova Abbott

Richard & Susan Abbott:  Derek Richard married Jessica Josie Rhodes on April 11, 2007 in the Portland, Oregon temple.  Jessie comes from Wellmington, North Carolina.  Although Derek's parents didn't meet her until 3 days before the wedding, that was enough time to know she is the "sweetest thang" and will add great balance to Derek's life.  The newlyweds will live in Rexburg, Idaho and finish school at BYU Idaho.  Jessie has one more year to earn her teaching degree. Derek will have a few more years after that.  He is majoring in braodcasting and wants to replace Steven Spielberg.

David & Nancy Abbott:  Jonathan Abbott graduated from Utah State University in Physics.  He's heading for graduate school at BYU aiming for a PhD in physics. He's been offered a Teaching Assistant position for the year starting in the fall.  They'll be moving to Provo in June.  Daughter Allison will graduate from Seminary and Meridian High School on June 2. 

Richard & Suzun Abbott

Suzun competed recently in the Utah State Women's Golf Association tournament.  She placed second net in the first flight at 145 (+1 on her handicap) and won a new Taylor Made driver as a door prize.  She was pretty excited.  Her son, David and wife Elisa (who is very pregnant) are selling their house in West Jordan and moving back to St. George

Richard was called to assist in indexing the 1990 census and work as an arbitrator.  All records are entered twice by different people and the arbitrator resolves differences.  So far he has entered over 18,000 names and arbitrated 9,000 names. 

Mary and Jeffrey Kunz:  As reported last month, Jeff is the Branch President of the Gratiot Branch in Detroit.  The first Sunday there were about 30 people in attendance.  A couple of weeks ago it hit a high of about 75.  He is working closely with the missionaries reactivating members.

Kevin Kunz: Kevin just completed his 2nd year of dental school. He has one week to rest before starting his 3rd year. 

Curtis and Kristine Swarts:  Youngest daughter Emily was baptized and confirmed by her father on May 5. 

Maxine and Norman Mott

JoEllen and George Swarts:

Of course, JoEllen and George had an interest in Emily's baptism and were well represented by Kelli and Rick Harber family and Michelle Simister and children.

The Swarts family also celebrated Kelli's college graduation at a family dinner Sunday night.  She graduated with a degree in nursing on May 14.  Her RN pinning is May 15. 

Joyce, her daughter Amy, Jill, Michelle and JoEllen met in Salt Lake for a girls weekend recently.  Kelli and Jennifer were unable to make the trip this time.  JoEllen says they "shopped, ate, and stayed up very late laughing, reminiscing and sharing stories.  It was a great weekend."

Mark, Danielle and family just returned from a 10 day trip to Hawaii.  Michelle's husband, Doug Simister, is completing orthodontics school at UNLV and will begin practicing here in Las Vegas this summer.  He sold his dental practice two years ago to return to school. 

Lee and Karen Mott: 

 I will try to summarize three decades into a few paragraphs. Karen retired last year from a local orthodontist after working for him some 20+ years. She is busier now than she has ever been. We own a fixture company in Las Vegas that supplies merchandise fixtures and commercial cabinetry for retail stores. I was lucky enough this past year to win the Nevada State Senior (ugh) net golf tournament in Reno and also the Southern Nevada net senior player of the year. A few years ago we followed George and JoEllen (Swarts) to Parowan where we bought a house to get away from the grind. It is beautiful up there and we hate to head back to LV after spending time there. We were called about 5 months ago to an 18 month stake mission as group leaders in the Family Services department. We are working in addiction recovery and spend one night per week working with a pornography group (I tried to tell Karen that I needed to study more to be effective – but she did not go for that) and another night working with a recovery group that covers drugs, alcohol, food, and whatever other addiction someone may be suffering from. It has been one of the best callings we have ever had.

Tracy and Shaughna Mott have three children – Ryan, Jake, and Lyndie. Tracy owns a roofing company in Tulsa. Between that, their church callings, and the kids, they stay pretty busy. Ryan plays baseball, Jake plays football, and Lyndie is in ballet and cheerleads for her brothers. They were able to come out to Parowan last Thanksgiving and we had our entire family together for the first time in a long time. 

Justin Mott is living in St. George and working for the Holiday Inn. He was recently divorced but now gets to spend considerable time with his three children who still live in LV – Keaton, Carson, and Kennady. I am planning on opening an office in St. George and Justin is going to be running it for me. He is working hard on becoming active in the church. 

Joey and Andrea Mott are expecting their first child (a boy) in September. Joey served in the Minnesota Minneapolis mission and when he returned home he married his high school sweetheart in the Las Vegas Temple. Andrea graduated from Dental Hygiene school last year and has been working as a hygienist ever since. Joey is in his last year at UNLV and will be graduating with an accounting degree. He plans on going on to law school. They are living with us in Gramps old apartment and we love having them around. 

Nikki Mott went up to UVSC in Orem after high school and met a young man from Layton named Aaron Johnson who was attending BYU. They were married in the Las Vegas Temple and returned to Orem where he finished up his schooling and graduated with a degree in Entrepreneurship. I don’t even know how to spell it and he got a degree in it. They moved to Las Vegas after graduation and Aaron was lucky enough to land a job working for Mark Swarts in the commercial insurance business. Nikki works for the orthodontist that Karen worked for. They are living with us until their new house is completed in a few months. We will miss them when they move out. 

Timmy Mott is going to be a junior this coming year at Dixie State in St. George. He is attending there on a baseball scholarship and is the catcher for the ‘Rebels’. He met the love of his life there, Emily Jacobson, and they will be getting married on June 21 in the Snowflake, Arizona Temple. We are having a reception in LV on the 23^rd and then they head south to Cancun on their honeymoon. Dixie is now a four year school and they will be returning there to finish up his education. He loves St. George and says he will never move back to Vegas.

Love to all. Lee and Karen Mott

Max & Twila Abbott

Chris Morrison wrote the following informative letter:  Dear Family - I know you don't often hear from the Max/Twila/Chris/Steve/Becky Abbott families.  We seem to be able to talk louder and longer than anyone else, but fall short in the written communication area.  So here's an update.  Twila is no longer on the hospital to rehab to hospital train.  She's living at home with Max at Sterling Court but has qualified for home hospice care.  With assisted living, hospice, four to six hours a day from Becky, and round the clock care from Max, she's pretty comfortable. 

Becky left her job at LearnKey and is devoting full time to her mother and her own family.  And she's doing a great job at that.  Steve continues to travel constantly.  He went to Vietnam this year in addition to his other exotic locations.  Judy continues on with her work as a nurse at a doctor's office. 

At long last, Chris's Bishop has approved her temple preparedness classes, paving the way for her to receive her Endowment.  The classes will be completed by May 29^th and she is looking forward with great anticipation to going to the St. George Temple in early June.  Y'all come on down and go with!  She's also finishing up the second draft of a musical stage play commissioned by Cathy Rigby, a prequel to "Peter Pan."  If that ever actually makes it to Broadway, she'll personally send each one of you a ticket to opening night!

Christian is attending school at West Ridge Academy, a boarding school in West Jordan, Utah.  He sounds calmer and happier than he's been in years and seems to be sincerely working hard to keep his grades up and get his high school diploma.  After that he wants to attend L.A. Recording School, where he will learn to be a sound and music engineer.  He wants eventually to be a big shot record producer.  Who knows?  Much stranger things have happened.

Max has been primarily giving care to Twila and what little time he has left he has spent writing his life story.  He, too, has received his Temple Recommend and is looking forward to returning to the Temple. And although Dick and Suzun have their own stories to tell, can we just all say we don't know how we would ever get along without them?  They have both been so generous with their time and their talents as Max and Twila progress down this aging path.  They make us all humbled to be family.

And I know Cathy and Darwin will have their own update.  And we don't see them nearly often enough.  It must be that years of living so far away from everyone has gotten us out of the habit and calling to say "Hey."

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms... look forward to reading what's new with all of you.

E T & Mary Johnson

Teresa and Duane Draper:   Daughter Leslie Veora Draper and Nathan Allen Wood will be married June 22 in the Logan, Utah Temple.  Nathan is the son of Bill and Carlene Wood of Cincinnati, Ohio. Duane and Teresa live in Haines, Alaska.

Duane and I are moving to Manila Utah this summer  where Duane will be running a medical clinic for the county and treating all those patients that come to Flaming Gorge.  We will do an update once we get settled.  We just had our 12th grandchild,  Rose Philippa Askren born April 2nd to Jay and Tierza Askren. 

Trudy and Henry Bradford: Trudy writes, "I just wanted to send this fun picture of Mother, my daughter Janell, and me.  It was taken in the foyer of Eagle Gate apts. in SLC the day Janell married Dan Williamson in the Salt Lake Temple.  What a wonderful day for all of us.  Didn’t Mother look spectacular?  The bride was beautiful, too.  Now all of our children are married.  We have had three grandsons born  since August 2006 and are awaiting the arrival of a little granddaughter soon (See under "Births" for details.  Then we will have 26 lovely grandchildren. 

"Our daughter Anne Fullmer has begun the RN program at BYU Idaho.  She is the busy mother of 5 girls. Her husband Kyle is very supportive.  Our daughter Joan and Michael White and three children have moved from Gilbert, AZ to Utah while Mike finishes his degree at BYU.  They are renting a house in Saratoga Springs.  Kudos to both of them. "

Hermese & Bill Thiess

Kenn & Nancy Thiess:  Lindsay Larsen wrote and sent a couple of great pictures. She says,

Roy and Pat Abbott

Kelli Seymore, daughter of Roy & Pat's late daughter, Kay, and Daryl Seymore was married to Zac Jacobson on April 28, 2007 in the Snowflake, Arizona temple.  Zac is the son of Neil and Denise Jacobson of Cedar City, Utah. 

Last updated on Wednesday May 16, 2007