Our incredible mother, Zoma Deane Warner Painter, was reunited on January 10, 2019 with our dad, James Painter. There is not a finer example of selfless, unconditional love than that which came from our mother. Losing her father at age three during the Great Depression and having been raised by her young, widowed mother, she longed for the time when she could have a big family and be able to spend her time loving and caring for a house full of her own.
On Valentine’s Day, 1948, she and dad began that journey. She spent the next 70 years loving and nurturing 10 of her own and 71 grandkids and great-grandkids. She never missed a grandchild’s birthday without sending a birthday gift or a card and some money and every single grandchild got a Christmas ornament yearly on a theme of something that interested that child.
Her living room floor would literally be covered in beautiful colored foil bags full of gifts and ornaments ready to be shipped out for Christmas, a process that began in July each year to be ready for the holidays. She LOVED having her grand kids and great-grandkids come to St. George to spend part of a summer, so they could hang out at her house for a while and be spoiled by her and Grandpa Jim. She loved her Danish Ancestry and was able to travel to Denmark in the summer of 2000 and visit the villages and churches where her ancestors lived before coming to America.
On that trip she was able to meet and visit with Elder Russell M. Nelson who was there at the time. She took joy in recounting the stories of how her great grandmother came to Utah after immigrating from Denmark and wrote a book about her entitled, “But I Got to Come to Utah”. She never missed a ball game, a dance recital, a baby blessing, or a court of honor, graduation, mission farewell or wedding for one of her kids or grandkids.
Abraham Lincoln once said, “All that I am or ever hope to become, I owe my Angel Mother”. Her ten children and 71 grandchildren and great-grandchildren are blessed to have an Angel Mother, Grandmother, and Great-Grandmother. Mother, we are all better because of you.
Zoma Dean Warner Painter, age 88, our loving mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother passed away peacefully on January 10, 2019 in St. George, Utah. Mom was born November 5, 1930 in Petaluma, California to Francis Elwood Warner and Eudene Sorenson. She married her high school sweetheart, James Lamont Painter, on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1948 in Nephi, Utah.
They were sealed to each other and their children in the Manti Utah Temple on October 23, 1971. She was preceded in death by her loving husband, James Painter, on October 6, 2016; her mother, Eudene Sorenson, on June 25, 1982, and her father, Francis Warner, on January 29, 1934. Mom is survived by her children Randy (Tonya) of Nephi; Rodney (Debbie) of Nephi; Marjorie Painter of St. George; Bill (Julie) of South Jordan; Patrick (Tonya) of Nephi; Kelly (MaryAdele) of Gilbert, Arizona; Thomas (LaDawn) of Provo; Phillip (Jill) of Las Vegas; Molly (Perry) Davis of Nephi, Melanie (Curtis) Stephenson of St. George, daughter-in-law, Barbara Painter of Nephi; 37 grandchildren; and 34 great-grandchildren.
A Celebration of Life/Open House will be held on Sunday, January 13, 2019 from 4-6 p.m. in St. George, UT. For information contact tpainter96@gmail.com. Funeral services will be held Saturday, January 19, 2019 at 11:00 a.m. in the LDS 4th/5th Ward Building at 345 East 500 North, Nephi, Utah.
A viewing will be held Friday, January 18, 2019, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the Anderson Funeral Home at 94 West 300 North, Nephi, Utah and at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday at the Nephi 4th/5th Ward Chapel. Interment will be in the Nephi Vine Bluff Cemetery.
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