Mary Kloepfer

Mary Jane Ogden Kloepfer, peacefully passed away February 15, 2015. She was born February 9, 1924 to Walter Marsh Ogden and Mary Olive Ross Ogden in Richfield, Utah. Mary Jane graduated from Richfield High School and attended Nursing School at LDS Hospital where she met her husband, Eldon Joseph Kloepfer. Mary resided in Logan, Utah where she raised her four children. She and Eldon, both pilots flew throughout the Western United States, Mexico and South America prior to his death in 1968. Mary Jane continued traveling throughout the world and lived an adventurous life residing in her home in Guayabitos, Mexico, Murray, Utah and Sunrise of Holladay, Utah. She loved her grandchildren, yard sales, Utah Jazz, GSN, singing, chocolate and bingo. She was a self-taught handy man. She lived a long, adventurous and charmed life. She was loved and will be missed by many.
Preceded in death by her husband Eldon, her son David, her parents, and siblings Anna Jenkins, Olive Pearson, Phyllis Clancy, Ross Ogden, Dale Ogden, Ted Ogden, Dorothy Quinney, Larry Ogden, and special friend Emil D. Albrecht. Survived by her 3 children Nancy (Gailen) Hess, Jill (Ray) Koncar, Jack (Lauri) Kloepfer, 8 grandchildren and 8 great grandchildren.
We would like to thank Sunrise of Holladay and Inspiration Hospice for providing excellent and loving care.
Informal Services will be held, Saturday, February 21, 2015 at 10:00 am, at Holladay Cottonwood Mortuary, 4670 S Highland Drive,followed by a Graveside Service at Logan Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, take a senior loved one to lunch. Memories may be shared at www.holladaycottonwoodmortuary.com
Eulogy for Mary Jane Ogden Kloepfer
We are here to celebrate the life of Mary Jane Ogden Kloepfer, who peacefully passed away February 15, 2015. For the rest of my talk I will refer to her as Mom. Please substitute Grandma, Great Grandma, Friend, or Mother in law, to suit your own specific circumstance. Her relationships served in many different ways. She loved us all deeply.
We were all so grateful that our sister Jill was there with her when she passed peacefully on Sunday morning. It was extremely calming to know that Jill was there to comfort her as she passed. We think that she was concerned for us up to the end, and Jill was there to let her know it was ok to go, that we would all be ok. Funny how that works with mothers. They will be concerned about their families up to the end, and this tells me how selfless they can truly be.
Mom was born February 9, 1924 to Walter Marsh Ogden and Mary Olive Ross Ogden in Richfield, Utah. Mom graduated from Richfield High School and attended Nursing School at LDS Hospital where she met her husband, Eldon. She raised 4 children, lived in various parts of the Western US, was a widow by 43, and a shrewd business woman, traveled all over the world, lived in Mexico, and many other life experiences that I am just finding out about.
Mom was raised in Marysvale and Richfield Utah along with 8 other brothers and sisters. Marysvale was the end of the line for the Train coming south along Highway 89. Grandma and Grandpa had a big cattle and sheep spread at the mouth of the valley, just upstream from the Big Rock Candy Mountain. Grandpa had some work for a lot of depression era hobos. Once mom was forced to lock one of these characters in the outhouse to keep him from causing more trouble. The depression era taught the Ogden’s many important lessons like how to get along without money, and Mom had lots of stories about how hard they all worked, and what they had to do to make ends meet. Life was hard back then, but Grandpa was thrifty, and did not fall into the credit problems of many of his contemporaries. They survived with hard work, and trade with their neighbors. Mom was an avid Horse woman, and would race the train on her buckskin mare. The horse loved the romp as much as Mom did. . When I was 4 years old this had a profound impression on me, and the image of her racing the train is stuck in my head.
Mom met dad at LDS hospital where she was training to be a nurse. Dad was there for an appendectomy. He met my mom under less than ideal conditions. With little but a hospital gown to impress her, and some other issues that we will not go into here, it was almost love at first site. Still it is hard for kids to imagine how love can grow up around a bedpan, especially so fast. Their first date was to the movies, and was sort of a flop. Mom thought this guy was a real goof. Wearing off colored clothes, and telling her how beautiful her brown eyes were. Mom had dazzling Green Eyes, that I am sure she was very proud of, and dad was color blind. Well dad kept bugging her for a date, and when she ask him to take her to the Starlight room at the top of hotel Utah. That must have done the trick, because they were married within 6 weeks of meeting, and Mom decided to follow dad all over the US as the war progressed, and he started Radar School. Their relationship continued to be a hot one far into the days when I could understand what was going on. If I had known that the cool way of telling your parents to stop making out in front of you, I would have said get a motel room.
In the early days after ww2, the Kloepfer Family were somewhat nomadic, living near pipeline construction sites, like Yellowstone, Grace Idaho, Star Valley Wyoming, Telluride Colorado, and Jack’s favorite the needles store 20 miles north of Durango Colorado. One of Dads last jobs was in Twin Falls Idaho. The whole family moved there in the summer of 1967, the summer before Dad’s Death.
By 1953, the year of my birth, the family had settled in Logan Utah, in a home that was built by dad. Mom continued to raise her four children. Life was good, even if it was noisy and dusty up in the gravel pit. The kids loved the river, the cotton wood forest, skiing in the mountains, and even the airplane rides to far off construction sites all over the west. Mom seemed to understand the importance of all of this. We all grew up with a keen understanding of how much fun it was to be outside having fun.
Mom and dad, were both pilots and flew throughout the Western United States, Mexico and South America. As a family we did many trips to Mexico, and discovered places like zejuanetjo.
Prior to dad’s death in 1968, Mom and Dad, along with the Bowharts, flew from Logan UT down The west coast of South America, and across the Andes mountains to Benas Aris in the winter of that year.
Our Fathers Death, in the airplane accident, was a huge shock to all of us. To Mom it was devastating. Personally it took me 2 years to reconcile this with my Mom. It was difficult to understand the grief she felt. A pivotal time for me happened one summer day when I was 16 when I could finally give her a hug and tell her how sorry I was that this had happened. We both had a good cry and after that our relationship was different. I think she was ready to move on. Mom had an opportunity to sue the Beechcraft company, (The company who built the airplane that broke apart) for a lot of money, but decided that a long drawn out lawsuit would do nothing for the family’s mental health. I still appreciate that assessment of the situation.
One of the big lessons for me personally… Mom was offered some money by the Auction company to liquidate the construction company’s assets. That figure was not acceptable to her. She purchased a mailing list, and us kids licked stamps and mom sold those same assets for 3 times the figure quoted by the auction company. This was a big lesson for me. I kept this example in mind when starting my own mail order River Gear business. Mom taught us kids through example that nothing is impossible and the only reason why it does not happen is if you do not try.
Mom and I did our first Grand Canyon trip 1971, With David and Linda My brother and soon to be sister in law. By 1974 David had a Grand Canyon company, and I worked for him. This got me hooked on River rafting, like a bad habit. Of course this experience has lead me to my career choice. That first Grand Canyon trip was another turning point in my life. Once again mom was the catalyst for a unique life experience.
Mary Jane continued traveling throughout the world. Visiting Nancy in Germany, traveling to China, and even taking the Trans-Siberian Railroad across Siberia when Russia was still the Soviet Union. She lived an adventurous life residing in Mexico, where she helped many families start businesses in Guayabitos. She was a pioneer, and her children followed her there, where they all have homes today.
She was a self-taught handy man, excelling plumbing and dry wall repair, but saving the electrical for her Husband, who seemed to have a hard time getting the refrigerator grounded. Despite the electrocution hazard, she lived a long, adventurous and charmed life. Mom eventually sold that house, and moved to Salt Lake.
After selling her house in Logan, mom lived for many years in Murray, Utah. Later she came to reside at Sunrise of Holladay. She was deeply loved by the people who helped her through her old age, and her many friends that she made while at Sunrise.
She loved her 8 grandchildren, 8 great Grand Children, yard sales, Utah Jazz, GSN, singing, chocolate and bingo. I know that she loved me and her other 2 daughters. It was especially hard to spend time with her and go back to Durango.
Preceded in death by her husband Eldon, her son David, her parents, and all of her siblings, and special friend Emil Albrecht. Survived by her 3 children Nancy (Gailen) Hess, Jill (Ray) Koncar, Jack (Lauri) Kloepfer, 8 grandchildren and 8 great grandchildren.
I would like to thank Sunrise of Holladay and Inspiration Hospice for providing excellent and loving care over the last 6 years of her life. It was truly a quality of life thing for my mom to have the privilege to be able to live there.
Mom was loved and will be missed by many besides the people here.

Mary Jane Kloepfer
Graveside Tribute February 21, 2015
By Jill Kloepfer Koncar (Daughter)
My first memory of my mother was probably at the age of 2 or 3. She held me on her lap and rocked me in the rocking chair in her bedroom. She nurtured me with lots of love and always told me she thought she would loose me at birth. I don’t think they ever cut the cord.
Mom was tough. Dad was often on jobsites working so she had the major brunt of the kids. She ruled the roost. She healed all of our illnesses with a syringe of penicillin and made us all lick around the edge of a glass when one of us got the measles, mumps or chicken pox. This was so we all got sick together and got it out of the way.
Raised on the ranch in Marysvale and Richfield, she learned to milk the cows and ride the horses to round up the sheep and cattle. Mom was the 7th of 9 children and the last of her siblings to pass on.
At the tender age of 20, almost finished with nursing school she met and married my dad. Nursing school would not allow married women so when dad left for the Navy she followed him. From city to city she went on the bus and trains got an apartment and then a job. She used to call home and tell her father to sell on of her lambs and he would send her $50 to get by. I'm not sure if he ever really sold the lambs but he always sent her the money to help out.
It could have been in Chicago or maybe Detroit that she lived in a room of house owned by a lady that had a bulldog with not teeth and a bald canary. Another place she lived, she and dad had to sleep in the bathtub to avoid the bedbugs.
She was an adventurous young woman. This fit well with my dad, two peas in a pod.
I love what Jack said earlier about their passion for each other. Dad would grab her and she would scream and jump and say "Eldon, not in front of the kids". She loved it.
Travel she did, Mexico, Mexico, Mexico. The South America trip was huge. They planned it for 3 years. Finally Jack and I got old enough to leave and off they went. She also traveled to Europe when Nancy and Gailen were in military service in Germany. Russia twice where she met Emil on the tour, Greece and Spain with Phyllis, the Balkans with Anna, China with Phyllis, Australia and New Zealand with Emil. She and I took a trip to Guatemala, rented a car and drove through the mountains to Antigua, Lake Atitlan and Chichicastenango. One of my best memories. She also traveled extensively throughout the states and also to Hawaii and Alaska.
Mom was a self taught handyman. She worked on washers, dryers, plumbing, disposals, sprinkler heads. She could fix anything. She had to learn this being home with dad on the road and later in life as a single home owner.
She sewed all of our dresses until I got my first store bought dress in Junior High. I vividly remember the summer Nancy got married and all the sewing and quilting projects.
She never claimed to be a good cook, but we loved her devils food cake with hot fudge sauce on Sundays, the BBQ goulash casserole and the pot roast were Jacks favorites. Endless candy and the famous fudge at Christmas. She canned tomatoes, peaches, mustard pickles and we especially loved Grandma Kloepfer's chili sauce, or as she called it "chilla sauce". I wonder if those recipes will ever be produced again of if they are gone forever.
She told me a funny food story that I need to share. She and dad and maybe Dave and Nancy were living with Ron and Faye and their two small children in their house. She had to make a cake for a bake sale. After it was finished baking she put it on the window sill to cool. When she returned to check the cake the chickens had pecked the entire top of the cake off. Too late to bake another one, she frosted the cake and made it look fairly normal and took it to the sale. Luckily she never heard another word about it.
The summer in Telluride where we lived on the jobsite with dad and his employees and families had to be a little difficult. There were two adults and 4 children in our 20 foot travel trailer. Mom told me those were some of her best years.
Remember her motorcycle era? (Yamaha, purple and white).
Her life in Logan was getting a bit too much to do by herself so she sold the home and moved to Murray to be with her grandchildren. She loved her family and especially the little kids.
After 25 plus winters in Mexico she decided to stay home. He last six years were spent at Sunrise Assisted Living after it became apparent that she could no longer live alone. She was very fortunate to live there. She loved it an it was home. She Thrived. She was social and active and loved her friends and caregivers. In spite of her stroke related dementia she knew everyone and called them by name when she saw them. She genuinely cared and watched out for everyone she lived with.
What will Sunrise Choir do without her strong singing voice and the endless Cokes she made everyone take before they left her room?
A special thanks to Franki from Inspiration Hospice for the past year and too many at Sunrise to thank individually, but you were all appreciated. One story about a Sunrise employee I need to tell.
Sean worked the night shift and cared for her when she called, always having her smell his cologne. One night or probably early morning not too many months ago he was taking the garbage to the dumpster and put Mom in her wheelchair and took her with him. He showed her the stars. By the way she talked, I think she had forgotten about stars and she talked about this often to the end. Thanks Sean. Do this again for somebody.
Our last years were spend on endless shopping trips either with the walker, the electric carts in the stores that she could drive herself and toward the end in the wheelchair. We went to lunch, parks, zoo and my favorite trip was to the State Fair to ride the feris wheel. I took the afternoon off work and I got her there and muscled her up to the chair which was really difficult, but we were the only people around on that weekday and the operators let us sit at the top for the longest time – until we tired of the view.
Every night mom had to put on her lipstick and Chanel No. 5 to go to bed. It was her routine and don’t change it. I told her that she and Marilyn Monroe both wore Chanel No. 5 to bed, but that is all Marilyn wore. She liked to watch golf on the weekends and loved "Lefty" (Phil Mickelson). She loved him so much that we cut the photo of him from the newspaper and hung it at the head of her bed. She would say, "look who I get to sleep with".
She meant the world to me. She taught me the meaning of compassion and empathy and I learned so much about myself and others. She gave me her last 20 minutes of life and I will love her forever. She will always be in my heart.