HESS, THORA ANN RODERICK – September 16, 1920 – March 30, 2006
Thora Ann Roderick Hess died Thursday, March 30, 2006 after a long illness in her home in Sandy, Utah. She was 85 years old.

Thora was born Sept. 16, 1920 in Franklin, Idaho, the third of four girls born to William Price and Mary Jane Myler Roderick. She grew up on a farm in the Malad Valley of Idaho and graduated as an honor student from Malad High School in 1938. She was also the valedictorian of her seminary class. She moved to Ogden, Utah and attended Weber Junior College, where she studied English and Theatre and met the love of her life, Rex J. Hess. During World War II, she worked as a stenographer at the military bases near Ogden. Rex and Thora were married June 13, 1942 in Pocatello, Idaho, later solemnized in the Logan Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She had an unwavering testimony of the gospel and served in many capacities of leadership and teaching in the church. Due to her husband’s employment, she moved many times and lived in five different states in the West, in each one, she established a happy, peaceful home. She loved poetry, singing, playing the piano and dancing. She gardened and canned fruits and vegetables. She was a vigorous walker into her mid-seventies when even her out-doorsman Alaskan son struggled to keep up with her during walks through a local park. She had a remarkable talent for memorization and had committed several long classical readings and poems to memory; she was also a poet herself. As ward chorister, she memorized many of the hymns in the hymnbook – music and words.

She considered the care and love of her family to be a high art and was totally dedicated to the. She taught them all that she believed they needed to know, so much so that in Sunday school they could answer all the teacher’s question s without ever cracking open a book. She did not limit her teaching to the scriptures, but also taught them about the joy of life, doing such things as skipping into town with her five year old daughter and chasing robins with her young sons. She knew how to lift her children into the air on her feet, how to make them laugh and she always encouraged them to believe that they were the very best in the world at whatever they did and she convinced them it was true. “She was fabulous!” her daughter spoke for all. “She taught us well.”

She was the mother of four sons and one daughter. She is survived by her husband, Rex J. Hess, Sr. of Sandy, her sons, Rex Jr. of Sandy; Maclean (Amanda), Marietta, FA; Bill (Margie), Wasilla, AK; and her daughter, Mary Ann Hess (Greg), Salt Lake City; and one sister, Velma Ipsen of Malad. She was preceded in death by her parents, two sisters, Myrtle and Isabel and by one son, Ronald Earl Hess.

A viewing will be at Mountain View Memorial Estates, Monday April 3 from 6-8 p.m. Funeral services at noon Tuesday, April 4 at Old Mission Chapel, with a viewing beginning at 11:00 and burial following the service at Mt. View Cemetery.