Torrie Ann Buie Thalman

Torrie Ann Buie Thalman passed away peacefully in her sleep on January 8th of cancer. Torrie was the first of 5 children born to Dewey Lemar Buie and Joyce Parkinson Lucero in Salt Lake City, UT, on October 24, 1951. She grew up in Salt Lake City and graduated from Skyline High School in 1969.
In 1981, Torrie met Philip Lynn Thalman, who tended the bar at the Utah Coal and Lumber Restaurant in Park City. She won his heart when she delivered his favorite snack, raw pine nuts, to his remote teepee home in Echo Canyon. The couple married on the banks of the Green River on May 18, 1983. They arranged a special wedding party river trip complete with friends, an ordained minister, and a decorated wedding cake packed in a Tupperware. She wore a bouquet of wild flowers picked near the river. The couple first made their home in Park City then moved to Peoa, in the high Uintahs of Summit County. While living in Peoa, the family was blessed with two sons: Erik Kent and Leon Clark. The family of four was sealed in the Salt Lake Temple in 1991.
In 1996, Torrie and her boys moved to North Logan, Utah. She attended Utah State University in business information systems. As part of her program at USU, she took an internship at Convergys in Logan, where she worked until her retirement in 2014 after 17 years with the company.
Torrie led an independent life, providing for herself and directing her own course. She was employed almost all her life; her first job was at Dairy Queen as a teenager. She loved the Northwest Coast of America. Her favorite memories included sailing off the Oregon coast, and road trips through Northern California. She lived and worked in Portland for a time, and considered it one of her favorite cities. No matter how far she went, however, the call of her mountain home drew her back to Utah, and to Logan. Torrie is a direct descendent of William Brigham Parkinson, the first practicing physician in Cache Valley, who died treating the sick during the Spanish Flu of 1920. She felt a deep affinity for her Parkinson and Neuberger ancestors in Logan, and an abiding connection to this valley.
Torrie loved to establish family traditions. She took the boys as children on an annual trip to the deserts of central and southern Utah. She wanted to instill in her sons a love of nature, and she was not afraid to get a little silly to accomplish that goal. When the young boys’ clumsy hands only scared the little blue lizards into the bushes, Torrie would get down on hands and knees in the sand and with lightning speed, would catch them. They kept them for a day or so, admiring them and feeding them crickets, before releasing them back into the red rocks.
Holidays were a special joy to the family, especially Christmas traditions together. Each year, they went together to Temple Square to see the lights. General Conference was a family tradition as well. Torrie and her boys would stay at the Inn at Temple Square and attend sessions at the Conference Center. She resented it being torn down, and to her last, refused to visit the City Creek Center, which replaced her beloved Inn.
Much to the chagrin of her teenage sons, Torrie always put them to the task of tending to her vegetable garden during the hot summer months. An avid gardener, she preferred the oddest varieties of tomatoes, often spending hours at Anderson’s Seed selecting the perfect seeds and seedlings. Both her sons eventually grew into her love of growing things, and look forward to harvesting her Mr. Stripeys and Purple Cherokees this fall.
Torrie always wanted a daughter, and she found one in Aiya Sakr, her daughter-in-law. One of Torrie’s favorite memories came late in life, when she traveled to Jordan in 2015 to stay with Aiya’s family for their wedding. She loved learning Arab cooking, and every year on visits back to Logan, Aiya and Erik brought precious gifts of zaa’tar, dried goat’s yogurt balls called jameed, and bags of Jordan almonds. Part of her enduring legacy lives on in sharing her recipes with her new Arab family. Her strawberry shortcake, prepared from an old family recipe handed down from her ancestors in North Carolina, is now a favorite treat of Aiya’s immediate and vast extended family in Jordan.
Faith in Jesus Christ and his Gospel was of upmost importance in Torrie’s life. She directed her life by spiritual prompting, and always followed the guidance of her heart. While in Jordan, Erik’s father-in-law took Torrie, Aiya, and Erik to Jerusalem, to the Old City. To stand before the Garden Tomb and offer a prayer of thanks to her Lord was a gift she cherished. She often loved to break out the photo album of her trip, and tell friends all about the Holy City.
Torrie is survived by her sons, Erik and Leon Thalman, her daughter-in-law, Aiya Sakr, and siblings Kim Buie, Jody Buie Watkins, Clark Taggart Buie (Tag), Phillip Buie, Ben and Tyler Buie, many nephews and nieces, and her 20-year-old cat, Julie. She was preceded in death by her parents, Dewey Lemar Buie and Joyce Parkinson Lucero, and by Erik and Leon’s father, Philip Lynn Thalman.
Funeral services will be held at 11:30 on Wednesday, January 16th, at the LDS Chapel on 1105 East 2100 North in North Logan. Burial will be in the Logan Cemetery. Condolences and memories may be shared on line at www.allenmortuaries.net