Joan Kearl Hebertson

Our mom, Joan Kearl Hebertson was born in Logan, Utah on October 26, 1928, to Earnest Heber Kearl and Germaine Margaret DePassel Kearl. She was the fifth of nine children. Her childhood, familial background and upbringing were typical of children during the Great Depression Era. Mom was in every sense a country girl and essentially remained so throughout the duration of her life. As a young girl, she spent many hours working with her father and siblings on the family farms west of Logan, and later in Smithfield, Utah. She was an athletic, spry girl who relished playing softball, horseback riding, venturing along railroad tracks, swimming in canals, or traipsing through the meadows of Cache Valley with her sisters, brother, cousins, and friends. She was also born with a gift for art and passion for fashion. As a little girl, she designed dresses for her dolls, and later, she learned to sew her own clothes. Mom blossomed into adolescence during the height of World War II. She spent several of her teenage years involved in wartime agricultural and industrial production working in the fields surrounding her home and in the Del Monte pea factory in Smithfield. As a student at North Cache High School, she was popular, outgoing, involved in cheerleading, and was known as somewhat of a prankster. After graduating from high school, she attended Utah State University paying her tuition with the money she saved while working at the pea factory. She rose early and rode the little streetcar that ran from Smithfield along the east bench of Cache Valley to the university. At Utah State, she earned at BA in Art and was a member of the Kappa Delta Sorority and the Sponsor’s Drill Team. She graduated from ROTC and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, although she did not serve. Upon graduation, the young woman from Cache Valley was to feel the pull of the wider world, for Mom’s was to be a life which broke away from rural Utah and was to span both vast continents and amounts of time. During the late 1940s, Mom set off to seek her fortune, traveling initially to San Francisco and later to Los Angeles. Eventually, she moved to Salt Lake City, where she took a job at ZCMI as a fashion illustrator and model, building a very impressive portfolio and earning a commendable reputation. However, the most striking occurrence of this period was when she met a tall, dark-haired intern, Wayne M. Hebertson, our father, who had graduated from the University Of Utah School Of Medicine. Mom and Dad dated casually for a few years until he was offered a residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. One day Mom received a letter from Dad inviting her to go to Boston, which she did. There, she took a position at Filene’s Department Store as a fashion illustrator. Mom and Dad continued their courtship and were ultimately married at the LDS Church in Boston. The couple then moved to London, England where Dad had been awarded a post-doctoral fellowship at the Royal Neurological Institute. It was here that Mom gave birth to their first son, Jonathan Wayne. Later, the couple returned to Boston and then back to Salt Lake City where their other children, Elizabeth Germaine, Andrea Bettina, and Peter Christian Hebertson, were born. Mom and Dad reared their family in the Olympus Cove neighborhood from the early 1960s until the early 1980s. During these years, Mom was extensively involved in supporting the local schools, the Salt Lake Art Barn, the Art Center, and was briefly a member of the Junior Assistance League. She supported her four children attending their many school activities, teaching them to ski, taking them camping and fishing, and packing for numerous trips to surrounding states, Canada and Mexico. She always maintained her children would be her greatest legacy and contribution to the world. Mom pursued her love of art into her later years taking classes at the University of Utah and studying under some of Utah’s finest masters. In 1998, she and Dad retired to Torrey in Wayne County, Utah. During the final years she spent there, Mom returned to her rural roots. She and dad lived in a home they loved and nurtured and cultivated the land in a place they treasured. Mom spent her days in Torrey painting, gardening, knitting, and exploring her surroundings. But most of all, she loved to watch the Fremont River quietly flow past her immaculate home and gardens. It might be said that although she had lived in California, Boston, and Europe, above all, she most deeply loved the vast, empty stretches of the American Southwest, especially, the spectacular high desert of Utah. It was here that both Mom and Dad felt most at home. Mom spent the last few years of her life under the adept care of the staff at the Wentworth at Coventry Assisted Living Center in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. We thank these special caregivers with all our hearts. We are also grateful to the excellent nurses and caregivers of Inspiration Hospice, who also cared for our mother in the final days of her life. Mom was preceded in death by her mother and father, her sisters Leah, Betty, Hazel, Ramona, her brother Earnie, and her husband Wayne. She is survived by her younger sisters Yvonne Bolingbroke and Norita Kearl, as well as, her four children, Jon (Julie) Hebertson, Elizabeth (Mike) Jenkins, Andrea (John) Luddington, and Peter (McKenzie) Hebertson, nine grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. Burial will be in the Torrey Cemetery under the care of the Springer Turner Funeral Home of Richfield and Salina, Utah.