Pamela Lewis Mitchell

Pamela Lewis Mitchell, age 70, peacefully passed away on August 28, 2021 in her home with her beloved husband and devoted caretaker, Garry Mitchell, by her side, after a long battle with a neurodegenerative disease.

Pam was born to Margaret Elaine Tingey and Raymond Aaron Lewis on March 7, 1951, in Brigham City, Utah. With her brother Gary, she grew up jumping the irrigation ditches around the Brigham City Tabernacle on her way to and from the local theater to catch weekend matinees (a showing of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds inspiring memorably vigorous leaps, as she told it). She graduated from Box Elder High in 1969, taking great pride and joy in jump splits with the Rockettes drill team and her star turn as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. She completed a bachelor’s degree in secondary education at Brigham Young University, where she also met and married Craig Ronald Hickman of Idaho Falls, Idaho, in the Logan, Utah Latter-day Saint Temple in November 1972. Together they had four children, Jared Winston, Kimberly Michelle, Leigh Megan, and Whitney Ann (deceased), whom they raised in Sandy and Provo, Utah. Pam was not just an exemplary but an exuberant mother, who looked for every opportunity to help her children grow as unique individuals and to treat them to runs to the Rainbow Mart for Cokes or detours for lime glaciers. Pam absolutely brimmed with life, life that she selflessly channeled toward enriching the lives of others, beginning with her family.

Pam combined her parents’ passion for education and commitment to community service. She was hungry for knowledge and understanding, but she was even more keen to share all that she learned in ways that made a practical difference to those around her. She always asked herself the question posed by the Latter-day Saint hymn, “Have I Done Any Good in the World Today?” Hence, not only did she pursue her lifelong fascination with ancient Egypt by taking university classes and accompanying archeological digs in the Middle East; she was the best-ever docent at the 1985 Rameses II exhibit at BYU and developed and taught a curriculum in ancient history at Timpview High School in the mid-1990s. She was a deeply civic-minded person who helped manage successful gubernatorial and mayoral campaigns in Utah in the 1980s, went back to school to earn a Master’s of Public Administration from the University of Utah (2004), and eagerly volunteered at the 2002 Winter Olympics. All the while directing plays and performing demonstrations of pharaonic mummification rites at her children’s schools.

One of the main beneficiaries of Pam’s determination to do good in the world every day was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She faithfully served in about every capacity imaginable, including as ward and stake Relief Society and Young Women’s President. More importantly, she undertook the small acts of care in her community that often aren’t officially credited—an unassigned visit or call to someone in physical or emotional need, a plate of cookies or an unexpected thinking-of-you gift, a doorstep Christmas carol. From 1996-1999 Pam was called to help oversee missionary work in the São Paulo South Mission, where she provided profound care and guidance to hundreds of young people. There she became known for a Portuguese phrase that well captures her character: “dar um jeito,” which might translate as “make a way”—to go on and do good in any situation.

That is what Pam did over the last twenty years of her life. After divorce, she picked up stakes in 2003 and moved across the country to Belmont, Massachusetts. There she turned her education and experience, much of it as a volunteer, into a job as Director of External Affairs in the administration of Governor Mitt Romney. She was especially proud of Melanie’s Law, legislation that toughened the penalties for impaired driving. During this time, she was charmed by an Aussie gentleman named Garry Mitchell, whom she married in the Salt Lake City Latter-day Saint Temple in January 2007. She moved back to Salt Lake City, where she continued her life of service by taking a job with LDS Philanthropies and began her life with Garry, who became a true companion and solace. She and Garry traveled to Australia and all over North America before she began to decline as a result of her terminal neurological condition. Even as her illness deepened and she had reason to despair, her default remained cheerfulness; even when she couldn’t see you or verbally communicate much, the sound of a familiar voice typically brought an instant smile; the openness to the needs of the world around her that she cultivated over a lifetime was irrepressible.

Pamela Lewis Mitchell is survived by her husband, Garry Mitchell, of Salt Lake City, Utah; her children: Jared Hickman (and daughter-in-law Aimee Evans Hickman), of Baltimore, Maryland; Kimberly Hickman Kelly, of Los Angeles, California; and Leigh Hickman Moss (and son-in-law Jeremy Moss), of Lancaster, Pennsylvania; and her grandchildren: Leonidas Russell, Ezekiel Friend, and Sylvia Pearl Evans Hickman; Rafaela Susan Kelly; and Ingmar Lewis Moss.

A service will be held on Friday, September 10, 2021 at 11:00 AM at Larkin Mortuary 260 East South Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah. A viewing will take place one hour prior to the service from 10:00-10:45 AM. Interment to follow at Salt Lake City Cemetery 4th Avenue and N Street, Salt Lake City, Utah.

The funeral service will be live streamed via Zoom and will be available to watch at the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89371016807
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