Nevada Watterson Hancey

NeVada Watterson Hancey
LOGAN, UTAH - NeVada Caroline Watterson Hancey, 95, passed away peacefully Jan. 4, 2010 surrounded by her loving family. NeVada was born September 14, 1914 to Alma Eugene and Annie Jeanette Sawyer Watterson in Logan, Utah. She was the first of two children. Her brother Alma Jr., 93, is still living. She married Blaine W. Hancey of Hyde Park, Utah on February 22, 1940 in the Logan Temple.

She attended Logan City Schools. She sang in the High School choir and enjoyed many sports activities. She also attended the Utah State Agricultural College. She later worked for the Logan Telephone Company as an operator, (number please) and supervisor, taking great pride in her ability to “fill the board” with plug-in connections.

NeVada had a wonderful childhood, learning homemaking and life’s skills from her dedicated and talented mother. She was an accomplished seamstress and loved to crochet knit afghans leaving one to each of her daughters and daughters-in-law.

She loved to dance and play the piano and later the organ and passed these skills on to her children. Saturday nights were dance nights at the Palador dance hall, (a barn) and the Dansante, dancing to the Blue Bird and other local bands. She and her brother Alma won many dance contests.

One of the band members was NeVada’s future husband, Blaine, a drummer for the Hyde Park band. She told Blaine she would not marry him if he did go on a mission and he said he would not go on a mission if she did not marry him. So, four days after she and Blaine were married in the Logan Temple, they said goodbye and Blaine entered the mission home for a two year mission to the Southern States mission.

She loved to keep a beautiful yard, full of flowers of all kinds and spectacular roses. Beautiful bouquets of flowers always filled her home. Her children learned to work and take pride in that yard.

NeVada loved to read. Books were a favorite gift, both to give and to receive. She was forced to give up reading and knitting when her eyesight finally failed in 1999.

NeVada’s life was a life of service, to her mother, family, friends, church, and community. She served in numerous church positions and loved the church choir serving as pianist and director. Her husband, Blaine was in the Cache Stake Presidency for 18 years. NeVada supported him, in the background, making his service possible. During this time she sent a book to each newly married couple in the stake. She always said her greatest accomplishments were the temple marriages of her three children.

She opened her home to the church’s Indian Placement Program for many years, to five different Lamanite children. Ester, Bernice, Teresa and Evert Augustine at various times and sometimes altogether, and Steve Harrison, loving them as her own.

After retirement, Blaine and NeVada wintered in Saint George with their friends and enjoyed the company of their vacationing family.

In her own words, “what I am today, I owe to the church. I have a strong testimony of Jesus Christ and the gospel, which I learned at my mother’s knee”. She passed this legacy on to her posterity. Thank you mother! We will always remember, love and honor you.

NeVada is survived by her children, Claudia H (Richard) Bracken of Logan, Utah, Blaine W. (Susann Thompson) Hancey Jr. of Providence, and Craig (Janet Hale) Hancey of Erda, Utah; a brother Alma (Lila) Watterson of Providence; 15 grandchildren and 39 great grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her parents and her husband, Blaine.

Funeral services will be held at 12 noon on Saturday, January 9 at the Allen-Hall Mortuary Chapel, 34 East Center Street in Logan. A viewing will be held prior to services from 10:30-11:30 AM. Interment will be in the Logan City Cemetery. Condolences and thoughts can be expressed to the family online at www.allenmortuaries.net