Mr. Everett Duncan

May 22, 1919 - April 26, 2013

Everett Duncan was the fifth boy born to George and Eugenia Duncan in Ferron, Utah. There were six boys in the family and one girl. He was a descendant of the pioneers, including Isaac and Hannah Morley, Jane and William Black, and Homer and Asenath Duncan, just to mention a few. He grew up in the Castle Valley, which was the last area that Brigham Young called the saints to settle. It was a desert valley with barely enough water to make farming and ranching possible. Even though his extended family and his brothers were all ranchers, Everett somehow came to dislike horses and all that came with them. He loved the farm life with the geese, chickens, sheep and other animals, and loved riding into town with his mother in the horse drawn buggy to sell cheese and butter. As a teen- ager, he had the opportunity to join the CCC camp in April of 1937. He worked as the personal assistant for the captain and also as a food handler for the camp. The work was in Joe’s Valley, west of Ferron. He learned a great deal of management, and military discipline. In September, he returned to High School and finished very well and enjoyed it. The summer after completing High School, Everett went to work for JL Wilson in Riverside, Idaho. There he met Nola, JLWilson’s daughter. He worked that entire summer alongside of Nola and other farmhands. His older brother, Morris was married to Nola’s older sister Rhea. Everett said that working on the farm alongside Nola was a good experience and he learned first-hand of her qualities and abilities. They had fun working together. When the second summer on the Wilson farm ended, he took a job topping beets by hand which was very hard work. When his mother contacted him and told him he could attend the trade school in Price, and work his way through, he felt it was good news. Everett finished the two-year trade school training as a carpenter, and put himself through by working at a service station and motel business. His two brothers, Orsen and Mervin worked at the same station, taking turns running it while attending the school. Everett had spent two summers working on the JLWilson farm, and knew he wanted to marry Nola Wilson. One day he called her and suggested that they get married. They set the date of September 22, 1941 to be married, since both of their birthdays were on the 22nd days of May and July. However, because of a delayed temple recommend arriving from Ferron, the date had to be changed. They were married and sealed for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake Temple on September 24, 1941. Everett has always said that that event was the most important thing he ever did, and has had a greater impact on his life than any other. During the next ten or twelve years, Everett worked on and off for the Walgreen Drug Company. His CCC training as a food handler became important as he qualified to be a manager of the Walgreen Restaurant . He managed the ever popular Walgreen Drug cafeteria in Salt Lake City for a time, and then in Pocatello Idaho. Life was hard. They move frequently and changed jobs frequently. Everett was managing the Walgreen Restaurant in Ogden during World War II, and for some reason there was a law during the war, that an employer could not fire an employee. So many of Everett’s employees took advantage of that and left him with more than his share of work to do and he worked long hard hours covering their slack to keep the restaurant running smoothly. Nola missed being near family and they were both unhappy. In 1947, Everett and Nola moved to Arco, Idaho, to pursue an employment opportunity to work restoring autos. The employment didn’t last long and Everett sought other employment once they were living in Arco. This setback was insignificant compared to what else took place in Arco. Once they were there, they were welcomed and fellowshipped by members of the church. Even though they had been married in the temple, the work at Walgreens required Everett to work on Sundays, and they had fallen out of the habit of regular church attendance. Arco Idaho will always have a warm spot in Everett’s heart because that is where he found the Lord. He developed a personal relationship, friendship and loyalty to the Savior of The World, Our Lord and our Redeemer, even Jesus Christ, in Arco, Idaho. When Everett became active in the church and found himself, life was never that hard again. It is almost like we could say that after Arco, they lived happily ever after, even though they had six more children and many more trials. Everett didn’t just become active, he embraced the gospel. He made a personal commitment that would last the rest of his life. The employment situation in Arco never was good, and they found themselves once again unemployed. This time it was nearly Thanksgiving. They had three children and no income. Everett turned to the Lord and promised Him that if he could get a job to sustain his family, he would always keep the commandments. It was a promise that Everett has always kept. The Lord has, of course, also kept his promise. Everett and Nola began to build their household of faith, and have maintained it ever since. Everett found employment and eventually took a job with the Heyrend Construction Company. During this time he worked as a foreman on such big projects as the Idaho Falls Hospital. He began building houses during those years and eventually became self-employed as a carpenter, which was his dream. About 1964, He built a large home for the family in Coltman, Idaho, on a four-acre parcel of rich farmland. He created a paradise-like mini farm with animals of every kind, except horses or course, and even bought a tractor and a hay baler for the alfalfa field behind the house. He had a large garden and fruit trees, irrigation turns, and beef and poultry to fill the freezer each fall. He was living the dream. Then in 1971, Gilbert McDougal proposed a new opportunity to join him in a home building venture in the Salt Lake City area. He chose to accept the opportunity and sold the home in Coltman and moved his family which then consisted of five children still living at home to a rental house in Sandy, Utah. Only a few short months later, Gilbert passed away, leaving the new business barely beginning to operate. Everett was left with a great deal of responsibility in a new area where he had few contacts and little experience. It was a stressful and hard time for him. After many difficult months, he once again chose to be self-employed and relied once again on the Lord for help. He built another large home for his family in Sandy, and slowly but surely came to know that the move to Utah had been a good decision. He was called to be a sealer in the temple, and also to be a patriarch in the stake. His posterity has been greatly blessed by his ability to seal them in the temple as well as give them their patriarchal blessings. What once was a giant challenge to be unemployed at Thanksgiving time became the usual and calm lifestyle for Everett. His sons who worked with him in his carpentry business in Sandy often tell of how they would finish a job on Friday afternoon and not have any work lined up for the future. They would express concern and Everett would say, “The Lord will help us.” Then on Monday morning, the phone would ring, and they would have another job to do. They said that this happened many times. Everett and Nola truly lived by faith and built a household of faith for their children and their entire posterity to emulate. Everett and Nola served two full-time missions as a senior couple. The first mission was to the Dallas Temple, and the second one was to Ecuador. After 13 months in Ecuador, they returned home to have a heart operation for Everett and then finished serving that mission in Riverside, California. They also served a one year mission at the Lindon Cannery. In 1995, their children helped them build a home in Pleasant Grove, Utah. The family worried about them moving from Sandy where they had many friends, were working in the Jordan River Temple and Everett was the Stake Patriarch. However, even before the home was completed, Everett and Nola were called to be temple workers in the new Mount Timpanogos Temple, and Everett was asked to serve actively as a Patriarch in the Timpanogos Stake in Pleasant Grove. As a new resident of the town and retired from construction, Everett volunteered to help oversee the building of the Adventure Park being built in Pleasant Grove. Everett and Nola have lived in Pleasant Grove for seventeen years and have enjoyed the friendly small town atmosphere. Often they would invite the school children walking past their home inside for freshly baked cookies. This is an example of their friendly and generous way. Everett has been an example of righteousness, virtue and honesty to all who knew him. His family and posterity adored and honored him for the goodness of his life. He was forever the teacher. All who ever associated with Everett in any capacity were taught by him, either in a formal way, or in conversation. His teachings covered every aspect of the gospel, but in his later years he focused more on teachings about the family. Even on the day he passed away, he taught of the importance of eternal families, and gave us timely counsel before slipping away. Everett passed away at his home on April 26, 2013 at the age of 93. All nine children, some of his in law children and a few of his grandchildren were present, surrounding his bed as he peacefully took his last breath. A few prayers were offered during the evening, and it was a wonderful time. No one had called each other, they just all knew by inspiration that the time had come, and they were all present when Everett passed away.