Carolyn Engstrom

Carolyn Ruth Lyons Engstrom

Carolyn Ruth Lyons Engstrom, a kind and very loving person passed away on Saturday, July 20th in Provo, Utah. She was born on June 2, 1938, in Salt Lake City, the second of six children of Albert Lewis Lyons and Mary Cleo Hansen Lyons. She missed being the first child in the family by five minutes because her twin sister, Marilyn, was born just before her. Carolyn learned to play the accordion and participated in an all accordion band. She went to South high school and upon graduating she went to LDS business College. While in high school she had a job with AP watching their teletype and delivering messages as needed. After LDS business College she worked for Utah Home Fire Insurance Company until she went her mission. She went to the Western States Mission and spent her time in Colorado and New Mexico serving the Lord. After her mission she found employment at BYU as supervisor of key punching. This was in the days when computers receive their input and output through cards and she was responsible for several employees who punch cards for student records, financial reporting and so forth.

She met Donald Emmett Engstrom who brought programs and other data for Carolyn to punch in computer cards before being processed by the computers. On September 24, 1963, Don (who was very shy and at the request of two girls, Carol and Naomi, who worked for Carolyn) took Carolyn to the University dinner in the Smith Fieldhouse where they had a wonderful time listening to Elder Mark E. Peterson speak, eating a wonderful meal, and listening to a barbershop quartet perform. After this they dated quite frequently including going to all of the October General Conference sessions together. On October 9th, they were engaged. They married on Valentine’s Day 1964 in the Salt Lake Temple. Their marriage was performed by Elder Henry D. Taylor, who had been Don’s mission president. They had a wonderful honeymoon attending the temples in Utah, California, and Arizona.

After two years with no children, they took a wonderful trip back east for the graduation of both of their sisters. One month later, they had the opportunity to adopt a baby boy, Emmett, born in Houston, Texas. This was a wonderful experience for them, and they enjoyed being parents. At this time Carolyn quit her work at BYU. Two years later, they were able to have a baby boy born to them, Wayne.

These two boys were wonderful, and they had a wonderful childhood growing up in Orem and Carolyn was a wonderful mother to them. When they were teenagers, they were involved in BMX racing and most of our vacations were involved in going to racetracks in Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California, and Wyoming. Both boys graduated from Mountain View high school in Orem, Utah. Emmett, the oldest boy, is a coal miner. Wayne took employment with US Synthetics making synthetic diamonds. Wayne passed away from cancer at the age of 42.,

Emmett married Kim Christensen from Springs City, Utah, and they had two children a boy, Nick, and a girl, Brittany. Brittany passed away in 2015 with two daughters which were adopted by Emmett and Kim.

In 1974 Don and Carolyn took their family to Brazil for 17 months where Don was a contract employee for the Goiás state government. The whole family lived in Brazil during that time and had many wonderful and different experiences and grew to love the people there very much.

After her sons graduated, she always had someone else living in their home. These included Pam Lawson, Willy Lawson, Darwin Rehart, Caisa Rehart, Helen Rehart, two girls from Albania, and their granddaughter, Brittany during high school and later with her two daughters, Emma and Abby. Don and Carolyn only had one year where they were empty nesters until they moved to Courtyard at Jamestown.

She served as a cub scout den leader, cubmaster, cub scout committee chairman for over 30 years. She really loved the 8 to 10-year-old boys. They and their parents always expressed their appreciation for the effort she put in to have the boys earn their awards and have fond memories of their cub scouting years. Carolyn also served as a secretary in the Relief Society, Primary President, and a counselor in the stake primary presidency. She received the Silver Beaver award for her service in scouting.

In 2004, Don and Carolyn served a mission in the Utah Provo mission office for nearly two and a half years. They enjoyed the experience, especially getting to know missionaries from every continent who had the opportunity of serving in Utah.

For their 50th wedding anniversary, she went with all of her family for a week to Hawaii which was wonderful and exciting time. A short time later, she and Don went on a cruise through the Panama Canal.

They moved to Jamestown in June 2014 and have enjoyed their experiences very much there and have grown to love the people, the activities, and the wonderful employees who work there and help us through our various trials.

Foremost in her life was her family. She always put family events ahead of any other activities except for church activities. She had a great love for Jesus Christ and would never miss a meeting if possible. She loved to participate in meetings always volunteered to answer questions. She and Don faithfully read their scriptures everyday together for over 30 years. During these years they read all of the scriptures at least once and the Book of Mormon and New Testament innumerable times. She loved people and was a great listener. She always put others before herself. She and Don used to joke that her way of showing love to others was to feed them or give them treats.

She had many health problems during her life including a subdural hematoma that caused her to be in a coma for nearly three months. She survived this as well as knee replacements, Carpal tunnel syndrome, breaking her femur twice, breaking her shoulder, diabetes, heart problems plus numerous other problems. She met these challenges with good humor. Her latest was fall on July 12th where she severely gashed her leg and broke her wrist. At this time, she was also told that she had cancer and that it had spread to her lungs and liver and that there was no way they could treat it. With this news she said she was at peace and that she would get her wish and die before Don did.

Carolyn is survived by her husband, Don; son, Emmett; daughter-in-law, Kim; grandson, Nick; and great granddaughters, Emma and Abby. Also, her sisters Bonnie Galloway (Darold), Nancy Anderson (Steve), Diana Kizerian (Dan), her brother, Bert Lyons (Mary Sue), and her sister-in-law, Linda Rehart (Michael, deceased).  She was preceded in death by her parents, Albert and Cleo Lyons; son, Wayne; granddaughter, Brittany and twin sister Marilyn. Carolyn had a great reunion with them after her passing away.

Her funeral will be on Friday, July 26th at 11:00 a.m. in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel located at 135 East 2000 South in Orem, Utah. A viewing will be held prior to the funeral services beginning at 9:30 a.m. A view will also be held on Thursday, July 25th from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Sundberg-Olpin Mortuary located at 495 South State Street, Orem, Utah. Interment will be in the Orem City Cemetery after the funeral services. Condolences may be expressed to the family on this page.