Passages I did not report

Mary Jean Backman Alley passed away June 2018 in Bountiful, Utah. A daughter of LeGrand Pollard Backman and Edith Mary Price, she was the second of five children. She married John R. "Jack" Alley in 1944 in Salt Lake City. Jack passed away in 2007.

After children began to arrive the family moved to Bountiful, where Mary Jean lived in the same home for seventy years. This was remembered as the center of the "Alley Universe". That universe included her seven children. All seven, with their father were there to see Mary Jean receive her bachelors degree in education, with which she taught third grade for 24 years.

Perhaps staying in one home reflects on the many travels Mary Jean did while growing up as well as the years of her husband's military assignments during WWII. Recall that she lived in South Africa while her father was Mission President there for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The church held much meaning for Mary Jean throughout her life, where she held positions in Primary, Young Women  and Relief Society organizations. Daughters of Utah Pioneers and University Women were other valued associations.

Mary Jean Backman Alley left her seven children, twenty-one grandchildren and forty-six great grandchildren and one great-great grandson.

Mary Jean's sister Beverly Backman Davis lost her husband Robert Edward Davis on April 22, 2018 in Salt Lake City. The 23rd would have been the sixty-sixth wedding anniversary for Bob and Beverly.

Born in Sugar House, Salt Lake County, his family remembered him as always able to "initiate, innovate and create." Such character as a child of the Great Depression would develop.

Bob served the United states in the military, and was part of the Army Band at Fort Lee, Virginia.
Music was a life long part of life, studying classical piano in childhood, he played trombone in school and formed jazz band as early as age eleven and played around Salt Lake for many years as an adult. He also was the 'go to' jazz pianist for big name performers when they came to Salt Lake City.

Bob created his own business, Davis Printing, which became the family business for over 30 years.

Robert Edward Davis was survived by is wife, four children, twenty-one grandchildren.

I got to know Bob while employed at the William E. Christoffersen Salt Lake Veterans Home. This circumstance enriched my life time and again, proving that I need treat others as if they were my family: and they just might be.