Clarice Simpson Call

Clarice Simpson Call passed away peacefully on March 2, 2023. With her passing, the world lost one of the last of the Greatest Generation, three weeks shy of her 100th birthday.

Clarice was born on March 22, 1923 in Bedford Wyoming, the sixth of eight children. Growing up on a dairy farm in a time and place with no car and little other automation, she learned the values of hard work, grit, and determination, traits that became hallmarks of her life.

She graduated from Star Valley High School in 1941, and promptly moved to the “big city,” Salt Lake City. Initially, she earned her room and board working as a nanny and eventually taught business administrative skills at several local schools. During the height of WWII, she had an impression to volunteer to serve her country. She immediately walked to the recruiting office and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Women’s Reserve. After basic training, she was stationed at the Headquarters of the Marine Corps in Arlington, Virginia. Being a Marine is one of her proudest accomplishments.

Clarice served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Canadian Mission. She attended Brigham Young University, graduating with a degree in psychology. She also did post-graduate work at the University of Utah and attended LDS Business College and Stevens-Henager Business College, where she became an expert in secretarial and administrative skills. She worked for many years as Office Manager for the Utah Office of Legislative Council.

In 1971, Clarice married J Harold Call in the Salt Lake Temple. She immediately became a mother to Harold’s eight children, one girl and seven rambunctious boys. She dedicated the best years of her life to endless cooking, laundry, cleaning, gardening, canning, caring for her elderly parents, and teaching her children (especially the youngest ones) about faith, discipline, and hard work. She was well-known for her amazing cooking and baking skills, which she used to bless the lives of countless neighbors, friends, visitors, nephews, nieces, and others. She regularly delivered gourmet meals to “old people” well into her nineties.

She served in many church callings throughout her life, including numerous callings in the Relief Society and Sunday School. She served a second full-time mission with her husband in the Missouri Independence Mission. They also served together as temple workers in the Provo Temple for many years. She kindly ministered to the needs of innumerable widows, mothers, the sick, the poor, and otherwise needy, and taught her children to do the same.

Clarice lived an amazing life. Things did not always work out for her the way she had planned, but she was never a victim of her circumstances. She taught us that the best things in life come from hard work, sacrifice, and dogged determination, and that the best things of eternity are gifts that come by faith, obedience, and patience. She was far from perfect, but even in her imperfections taught us of the infinite grace and mercy that come only through Jesus Christ.

She is preceded in death by her husband, a stepdaughter (Carolyn Call Fuller), two grandchildren, her parents (James Simpson and Eunice Van Leuven Simpson), five brothers and one sister. She is survived by seven stepsons, 36 grandchildren, 84 great-grandchildren, two great-great grandchildren, one sister (Velma Simpson Broadbent—who is currently 102), and many other nieces and nephews, all of whom she loved.

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. at the Heber 6th Ward Building, 1365 East Center Street, Heber, City, Utah. Friends and family are also welcome to a visitation to be held prior to the funeral from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m. The funeral may be streamed by visiting https://webcast.funeralvue.com/events/viewer/85672/hash:50868893DA0BBEC6 . Interment will be at the Heber City Cemetery