Elizabeth Lyn Clayton

Elizabeth Lyn Clayton died peacefully at her home in Midway, Utah, surrounded by her loved ones, on Tuesday, August 19th, 2014, at the age of 88, after a brief bout of pneumonia.

Born September 15th, 1925, in Ogden, Utah, to Rita May and Spencer Hampson, Elizabeth Lyn was a life-long member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She is survived by her husband, William Clayton; her six surviving children--Christy (Gary) Rogers, Scott (Angelle) Anderson, Cindy (David) Castleton, Tracy (Ed) O'Sullivan, Troy (Kat) Andersen, and Laurie (Lane) Lythgoe--her two step-daughters--Barbara (Cal) Bradshaw, and Courtney (Robert) Montgomery--and her many beloved grand- and great grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her daughter, JoLyn Dickey, and her son, Kim Steven Anderson.

Nothing was more important to Elizabeth Lyn than her family. She loved being a mother to her eight children, yet when her first marriage ended in divorce, she not only worked full time, but also went back to school, getting first her Master's and then her Doctorate Degree in Social Work, as well as graduating with honors.

She worked for twenty-two and a half years at the VA Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, before retiring in 1993. During those years, she fought against the misogyny inherent in the VA at the time, as one supervisor after another tried to hold her back and keep her down. Yet she never gave up, and was the head of the EEOC, a national council on the elderly, before she retired.

Elizabeth Lyn was always a smart, strong, loving woman, who never lost her sense of humor, no matter how difficult things became.

She bought her house in Midway in 1975, and began the process of remodeling, which would go on for years. But her dream had always been to have a little house in the country with a white picket fence. She held onto that dream, even though it meant that she and her second husband, William Clayton, whom she married on September 7th, 1978, and who also worked at the VA, would have to commute fifty miles each way to work. This is the home she lived in and loved for the rest of her life.

Despite working and going back to school, Elizabeth Lyn was a devoted mother, making certain that each child would get their time with her. She showed her children unconditional love, and taught them to be loving and accepting of others. She shared that love with so many others she met along the way, whether in counseling, in her church, or in daily life.

Her strong spirit and great heart would shine through wherever she went. Even the skies wept the day she died.