Cherry Bushman was born to Ted Bushman and Dorothy Lyman in Salt Lake City, February 25, 1935. The family moved to Portland, Oregon, the next spring where they lived until 1950. She grew up between two brothers, Richard and Willard. In Utah she then attended East High School and the University of Utah majoring in English. For graduate schools she went to Boston University for a Master's Degree in American literature and Harvard/Radcliffe for a PhD in English Literature.
She married Barnard Stewart Silver in the Salt Lake Temple on August 12, 1963. They have two children, Madelyn Stewart Silver Palmer (James) and Cannon Farnes Silver (Ariel Clark) and ten grandchildren, AJ, Benjamin, Cannon (Nicole), Dallin Palmer and Stewart, Sophia, Portia, Lydia, Miriam, and Cassandra Silver.
Along with her family she has lived in Denver, Colorado, Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii, Santa Maria California, Ferkesedougou, Cote d'Ivoire, Moses Lake, Washington, Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, Kinshasa and Lubumbashi, Zaire, and presently in Holladay, Utah.
She has taught at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake, Eastern Washington University in Cheney, and for Brigham Young University. She then moved to the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History.
Cherry has served as an officer or director of Author's Club, the American Association of Mormon Letters, Harvard Alumni Association of Utah, and Valley Mental Health.
She was called as the first Young Women's President in the new Boston Stake, the President of the Lahaina Branch Primary, the President of the Relief Society in the Denver Stake, President of the Young Women in the Santa Maria Stake, President of the Relief Society in the Moses Lake 4th Ward, Young Woman's President in the Liberty Ward while on an Inner-City Mission, Sunday School and Family Home Evening teacher at the Utah State Prison for seventeen years. Additionally she was an ordinance worker at the Salt Lake Temple for twelve years.
With her husband she was called to open the nation of the Cote d'Ivoire for the preaching of the gospel, twelve years after they had worked in the country building the first raw sugar plant there, the country, the first refinery in West Africa, and the first sugar cubing plant in Africa except for South Africa.
She was called to be a member of the Relief Society General Board, serving under President Elaine Jack from 1990 to 1997. Afterward Cherry wrote The History of the Elaine Jack Administration.
For the last twenty years as co-editor she annotated the forty-seven diaries of Emmaline B. Wells, the editor of the Woman's Exponent and the fifth General President of the Relief Society. They were published on the website of the Church Historians Press and completed in November 2022.
Cherry died June 25, 2023 in Holladay after suffering cancer, supported by family.
The funeral for Cherry Bushman Silver will be Saturday, July 8 at 11 AM at the Holladay North Stake, 4395 S Albright Drive, (2145 E) in Holladay. There will be a viewing at the church Friday evening, July 7, from 6-8 PM and Saturday morning from 9:30-10:40.
Those wishing to view the COMPLETED services via Zoom can click "Watch Services" or follow the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/uHwwLUt8xbgGPD3LXKuzJF9UXwml8pnAVobjFQTnUCaCv-bAMJ6fxRagUt-gn9KL.PbsFjTAPFS1GX4-C?startTime=1688834461000
You were such a wonderful friend and volunteer at the prison. You made it a much nicer to be there. May your spirit be welcomed home.