Phyllis B. Walser

To understand Phyllis, it helps to understand the family she came from. Her grandparents were “stalwart pioneers from Denmark, Sweden, and Germany; having been converted to the Gospel in their native land” they emigrated to America where they homesteaded in Utah and Wyoming. Of her birth, her mother records “Here in the Kelly Ward I also did a lot of church work, was a counselor in the Young Ladies Mutual and later, President. On September 21, 1920 the Lord blessed our home with a pair of twins, a girl and a boy, Phyllis and Philip. At that time I was in doubt as to how I was still going to be President of the Mutual with 2 little babies, but I was blessed of the Lord and made equal to the task” .

Phyllis’ account expands our vision even more when she tells that she was born at her Aunt Barbara Brown’s home in Kemmerer, Wyoming because there weren’t proper facilities in Kelly and that her mother didn’t know she was pregnant with twins! “Mom was 29 years old and Dad was 36 when we were born. We were the 5th and 6th children born to their family….Their home in Kelly, Idaho was a 2 room log house with a cellar, no water or modern conveniences.” Can you imagine, 6 children and 2 adults in a two room log home? No water. No bathrooms. And she (Phyllis’s mother, Lena, was worried about her church job?!)

In 1923 the family moved to Pocatello, Idaho where her father found work at the railroad. They moved a number of times during the following 10 years but eventually settled at 383 Willard Ave where her mother “resides alone at age 92”(this entry was from 1983). She loved school and seemed to thrive in it. Her twin brother, on the other hand, hated school and was anxious to be done with it.

At the age of 10 she joined the Jr. Genealogical Society. Each member of the group was given a Patriarchal Blessing. She tells of a bus trip with this group to the Logan Temple to do baptisms for the dead. Of that trip she writes “This experience was indelibly printed on my mind for in my childish dreams the Temple would some day significantly affect my future.” And indeed it did.

Of the depression years she wrote “Both Mom and Dad worked to keep food on the table. Mom cleaned apartments, took in washing and ironing, and worked in a potato sorting house, while Dad worked nights at the Railroad. Much of the keeping of the home, cleaning the house, doing the cooking, fell upon me as my two elder sisters were married , and Fern was also working after school.”

Of her teenage days she writes: “During my Junior and High school years I loved to read and excelled in my classes. However, after I completed the 11th grade, I became very restless and became enthralled with boy-girl relationships”…wanting to be free from parental jurisdiction. I visited a cousin in Wyoming and while there (I can’t believe it even to this day), I married a 21 year old without my parent’s knowledge or consent. I was 15. How little did I know what lay in store for me?”

Her new husband, Edwin Porter, worked in a coal mine only a few day’s a week. They shared a small company house without indoor plumbing with his two older brothers who also worked at the mine. Eventually she and her husband were able to move into their own “very small trailer like” home. Eighteen years, three children and countless hardships later, she divorced him.

She enrolled in a business school to learn the skills she would need to provide for herself and her children. After working for two years she married a “fine man who had two children, ages 7 and 12.” Though combining the families was a “sober and trying challenge” …” they faced it together”.

A son, Richard was born of this marriage to Richard Severen. Phyllis and Richard were married for 21 years when Richard died from an aneurism on the heart. Their son, Richard, had been both a joy and a challenge. Sadly, he died in a drowning accident in Hawaii at the age of 24, only a few years after his father’s death. His body was never found.

Phyllis was devastated. She writes “The heartbreak was devastating. Activity in the church and serving where called was a haven against the pain which engulfed me. My salvation was serving in the Temple and caring for my 94 year old mother, which I did for 10 months.” In 1981 she retired from her job at the National Marine Fisheries Service at Sandpoint Naval Station in Seattle, purchased a new home near the temple in Bellevue and went to work painting, wallpapering, decorating and landscaping it. Slowly her heart began to heal. To her surprise, after being a widow for over 10 years she met and fell in love with Stan Walser. They were married March 11, 1987.

This marriage would be the fulfillment of her patriarchal blessing, given to her at the tender age of 10, “Your last days will be very pleasant, and as thou stand upon the summit of life and dost look back over the way thou hast come thou shall say, blessed be the name of the Lord who has brought you all this way.” Their 23 years of marriage included the construction of three homes, serving two missions together, and travel to London, Europe, the Holy Land, Egypt, the Greek Islands, Istanbul, Chile, Argentina and Guatemala.

She especially loved her time as a missionary. Their first mission was to London, England in 1989 -1991 where they served at the mission headquarters doing the accounting and secretarial tasks required and looking after the welfare of over 200 missionaries.

On the day she left the Missionary Training Center in Utah for their mission in England she wrote: “ I am now sitting in our room at the MTC penning these few words as we prepare to leave and my heart is full, my spirit strong and eager, my eyes tearful for the wonderful opportunity it has been here these past 15 days….The time here with my dear husband, being his loving companion and sharing and working together is one of the choicest blessings of my life. May I be worthy to stand, to teach, to work, to endure, to love others is my most fervent prayer”.

In 1997 they decided to serve yet another mission, this time at the Family History Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. When not on a mission they served together as a temple workers in the Boise, Idaho Temple as well as the Seattle Washington Temple. Stan continues to serve as the Lynnwood Washington Stake Patriarch and a Sealer at the Seattle Temple.

In 2004 she began showing signs of forgetfulness and confusion. Eventually, this would be diagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease. Her devoted husband, Stan Walser, continued to care for her in their home until about a year before her death when it become evident that he could no longer meet all of her needs alone. He searched for a place he could trust and finally placed her in a group family home near their home where he could continue to visit her.

Phyllis is survived by her husband of 23 years, Daniel Stan Walser; her son, Larry LaMar Porter of Yokohama, Japan; her daughter, Cindy Porter Butler, wife of Charles Butler of Cairo, Georgia; by 6 grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her parents, her sisters: Afton Jensen Young, Ethel Viola Jensen Clawson and Fern Magdalene Jensen Sant as well as her brother Merrill Roe Jensen and her twin brother Philip (Bud) Alma Jensen ; by two beloved sons, first Richard Hans Severen in 1981 and then by Dennis Ray Porter in 2003 and by her grandson, Rhett Butler in April of this year.

She will be remembered by her family and friends for her outgoing and loving personality and by her courage and faith in Jesus Christ as she met the many challenges in her life. She was a beloved wife, mother, grandmother and friend.

We will miss her.