Kathleen "Kathy" Fairbanks

October 12, 1956 - May 16, 2017

Kathleen (Kathy) Jo Jones Fairbanks My gentle, loving, eternal spouse passed away Tuesday, May 16, 2017. After a valiant fight with many illnesses for over the last 11 years she passed away peacefully in my embrace. Kathy was the youngest daughter of Howard Verl Jones and Mary Alice Faga. She was born in Gary, Indiana on October 12, 1956. She attended and graduated from Merrillville High School and spent many years in the Insurance Industry where she worked her way up from a file clerk to a Commercial Lines Underwriter. She had an eye for detail and a mind for organizing. To Kathy everything had a right way to be done right and everything had its place. She was blessed with a son, Christopher Michael Jones. She raised him as a single mother in Arizona and California before settling down in Utah. Chris was everything to his mother and she was so very proud of him and the man he became. She also left behind two sisters, Carole Jones and Ellen Thorpe. Kathy met Martin Lane Fairbanks in 1991 and they were wed soon after. It was a marriage meant to be. They were sealed at the Salt Lake Temple in 1993. Through the marriage, Kathy gained 4 step children and their families, Laura Dawn (Fairbanks) & Jeff Matzke, J. L. Fairbanks & Kimberly (Card) Fairbanks, James Martin Fairbanks & Amber (Rasmussen) Fairbanks, Sara Nichol (Fairbanks) & Brian Belknap. One of the greatest thrills of Kathy’s life was her 13 grandchildren. I think she will miss them most of all. She was known as Nana to them and she collected every picture they drew for her so she could save and cherish them. She kept a glass bowl in the living room with rocks painted by each of them. Nothing brightened her heart more than hearing the name “Nana.” Kathy became a very active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and thirsted after knowledge and the Spirit. As disease slowly destroyed her physical self, her faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ grew. While she suffered physically over the last eleven plus years, she rarely complained and always tried to bear up and celebrate the life she was given. Funeral services will be held 11:00 am, Thursday, May 25, 2017 at the LDS Ward House at 1880 East, 9800 South, Sandy Utah. There will be a viewing at the church from 9:45 a.m. to 10:55 a.m. Interment will be in the Larkin Sunset Lawn Cemetery in Sandy.