Barbara Joy Dallon's Obituary
Barbara Joy Bolton was born in Salt Lake City, UT April 27, 1937, to Edwin Clive Bolton and Alpha Jessie Harris. Her kind and protective brother Edwin (Ted) was six years older. Most of her childhood and adolescence were spent in the East Millcreek area where her stake president was Gordon B. Hinckley. She attended Granite Elementary School and Olympus Junior High School and graduated from the brand-new Olympus High School in 1955.
Barbara’s mother was a professional piano teacher, so Barbara was raised in a musical and cultured environment. Her mother took her to a variety of concerts, plays and other events. Barbara learned to play the piano but excelled with the violin under the instruction of Olea Kinke. She was second chair in the high school orchestra and eventually played in the University of Utah orchestra during her two years of college experience. Her high school years were happy years. Her focus was on orchestra and home economics. At home Barbara developed cooking skills under her father’s guidance.
After high school Barbara enrolled at the University of Utah and continued her home economics interests with classes in cooking and tailoring and a six-week live-in instruction period in the Sterling Home Living Center. She became a very talented seamstress and a gracious hostess. Her brother Ted was also enrolled at the University of Utah. Ted introduced her to his classmate and friend, Dale Dallon, on a ski outing. In her young adult years Barbara became an excellent dancer who became a favored companion with brother Ted’s older returned-missionary buddies who kept her social calendar filled. However, shortly after meeting Dale, Barbara suffered a leg fracture during a skiing class. The cast put a pause in her dancing calendar that allowed Dale to begin dating her. That led to a 13-month engagement while Dale fulfilled his Naval ROTC commitment and was commissioned as an officer in the US Navy. On June 12, 1957, they were married in the Salt Lake City temple.
Barbara is the mother of three sons, Steven (Terilyn), Scott (Kalee), and Shawn (deceased), and one daughter, Lynda (Tim VanDuzer). She devoted her life to rearing them during Dale’s 5 years of military service and nearly five years of graduate school. Following graduate school they established their home in Rochester, NY (and subsequently Kingsport TN and Lehi UT) where Barbara kindly opened her home to countless guests including youth with troubled home situations, newly arrived ward members who became life-long friends, and visiting church leaders. Once she spent an entire day as driver and guide to the historic church sites with the president of the general Sunday school, Russell M. Nelson.
She has served in presidencies of the ward relief society, the young women’s organization, and the children’s primary organization. She has served many times as ward music director and chorister. As a visiting teacher she prepared a totally deaf native American sister to receive temple ordinances then escorted her by air to Washington, DC Temple to receive them. Her entire life has been devoted to unselfish service. She provided a home for her widowed mother for 25 years. She provided a home for her aged mother-in-law for 9 years. Her crowning joy was to serve as the first matron of the Palmyra NY Temple from April 2000 through September 2003.
All that service has been rendered while bearing serious health challenges. As a teenager Barbara contracted ulcerative colitis. The condition worsened with each pregnancy leading to near fatal abdominal surgery in 1972 to remove her entire colon. She was in the hospital for 13 weeks. A fall while roller skating at a youth activity led to a fracture of her left wrist robbing her of her ability to play the violin. As a senior adult she has suffered an irregular heart rhythm that terminated a 9-year scuba diving hobby including 94 dives. After back surgery to relieve nerve compression she experienced atrial fibrillation which caused pulmonary embolisms and lung damage that has demanded supplemental oxygen for the past 12 years and ultimately contributed to the congestive heart failure that ended her mortal life.
Barbara’s life has exemplified making and honoring covenants, and giving endless, selfless service while enduring to the end as a disciple of Christ. As her children and her 17 grandchildren and 37 great grandchildren we praise the impact she has had upon our lives and rejoice in the peace she will now enjoy.
Funeral services will be held at 11:00 am on Friday February 16, 2024 at the Lehi 48th Ward, 650 East 3200 North, Lehi Utah ~ with a viewing to begin at 9:30 am. Interment 2:00 pm at Wasatch Memorial Park, 3401 South Highland Drive, Millcreek Utah.
In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the charity of your choice.
You are invited to a Zoom webinar.
When: Feb 16, 2024 11:00 AM Mountain Time (US and Canada)
Topic: Sister Barbara Dallon Funeral
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