Eleanor Jeremy Ashton Badger, 97, died in Salt Lake City, Utah January 30, 2016, surrounded by her daughters. She was born in Salt Lake City March 9, 1918 to Marvin Owen and Rachel Jeremy Ashton and married Howard Carl Badger August 26, 1939. Together Howard and Ellie had five children.
Ellie was known as a kind, gracious and wise woman. She excelled at being prepared, showing interest in others and welcoming guests into her home. She also showed a remarkable ability to adapt and grow after Howard's passing in 1989.
Ellie lived most of her life in Salt Lake City's Parleys area, having moved there as a child when her parents pioneered the community. At the time, only a few homes dotted the area, and 21st East, now a main thoroughfare, was used in the fall as a sheep trail. Ellie found employment at Salt Lake Hardware and Sugarhouse Lumber, earning money to put herself through college. At the age of 20, she graduated from the University of Utah, majoring in home economics and minoring in chemistry. Ellie and Howard built their own Parleys area starter home on Oneida Street, later settling nearby at 2290 Berkeley Street. In recent years, Ellie enjoyed living in Holladay.
Ellie was the kind of person who would have preferred to quietly do her duty unnoticed. However, she answered when called upon to use her leadership skills for her church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Ellie served as president of her ward's Relief Society in her mid forties. (Before that time, she had been too self-conscious to even give a talk in church.) From 1967‚1970, when her husband served as president of the LDS Church's South Africa mission, Ellie served as mission mother to scores of missionaries, also supervising leaders of the Relief Society, Young Women's and Primary organizations for South Africa, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Zambia. Later, as a 70-year-old widow, she was as surprised as anyone to be asked to fill the role of ward Primary president.
More important than these more visible accomplishments was Ellie's longstanding, quiet example. Rarely one to preach, she lived sermons of service. Ironically, in her nineties, she was the one providing meals, notes and visits to the sick and discouraged. Her burgundy Camry with its "LE" license plate got plenty of use as it chauffeured older women back and forth to events.
Ellie — lovingly known by her grandchildren as Ouma — revered her ancestors, valued treasured friendships and appreciated excellence in all its forms. She enjoyed parades and loved to watch ballerinas "go up on their toes." She filled her home with inviting furnishings, thriving plants and beautiful music. She was a persuasive and insightful teacher.
Eleanor was preceded in death by her parents, husband, infant son Douglas Ashton Badger and siblings John Jeremy Ashton, Afton Grace Curtis (Louis), Wendell Jeremy Ashton (Marian and Belva), Marvin Jeremy Ashton (Norma), Phyllis Gardiner (Dan) and Edward "Ted" Jeremy Ashton.
Ellie is survived by her children H. Dennis Badger (Oracle, Arizona), Julie Rae Badger Jensen (P. David Jensen, Holladay), Carla Ann Badger (Belnap) (East Millcreek) and Lisa Ashton Badger (Robert A. Wood, Salt Lake City). She is also survived by 13 grandchildren, 30 great-grandchildren and numerous nephews and nieces. She adored them all.
Funeral services will be held Saturday, February 6, 2016 at 11:00 a.m. at the Holladay 28th Ward, 2625 East Milo Way. Friends may greet the family at the same location that morning starting at 9:30 a.m. Interment will be at Larkin Sunset Lawn. Online condolences www.larkinmortuary.com
