On Monday, December 14, 2020, Rhoana Estella Atkinson Shaw passed away due to complications from heart disease and kidney failure. Rhoana was born June 12, 1948 in Salt Lake City, Utah to Loyal and Mildred Atkinson. Rhoana grew up with a profound love of music, participating in school and church choirs from her time in elementary school. She also learned to master both the piano and the organ. She
developed an intrinsic love for spending time with family as a child from living on the same street as much of her extended family. Rhoana attended Hillside Junior High and Highland High School (both in Salt
Lake). While in school, she continued to develop her musical and dance talents as part of the Glee and Pep Clubs, while also participating in sports such as golf and skiing. After completing high school, Rhoana
enrolled at the University of Utah. She would go on to earn a bachelor’s degree in Music Education with a minor in English. She joined the LDS Lambda Delta Sigma Sorority and made life-long friends at the socials. After her freshman year, she was fortunate enough to be able to spend a dream summer in Hawaii in 1967 performing clerical work during the week and basking in the sunbathed beaches during the evenings and weekends. She would speak of this summer in whimsical, nostalgic terms for the remainder of her life while always dreaming of returning (she did return once in the 1980s). Upon returning to the state of Utah, she resumed her studies and enjoyed the quick fortune of meeting her
Anatomy tutor and soon-to-be-husband Harold. They were married in the LDS Salt Lake Temple on June 18, 1969. She graduated from college in the spring of the following year (1970) and gave birth to her
first child, a daughter Noel, that December. Her second child, David, would soon follow in May of 1972. After her children arrived, Rhoana synthesized her three main passions of family, music, and religious
devotion. She was a dedicated mother while running her own piano studio out of her home in Sandy and participating in her local LDS congregations as an organist, choir director, and other roles. In 1980, her husband Harold finished his master’s degree in education and found a new, but challenging job as a high school principal in the silver mining town of Eureka, Utah. His career advancements would result in further
moves to Richfield, Utah in 1987 and West Jordan, Utah in 1993 where they had a dream home built in which they would both reside until just before both of their deaths. Although she experienced health challenges in her later years, she loved traveling around the country and the world as much as possible. She also loved knitting, scrapbooking, gardening, and creating fun family traditions. 2020 would prove a tragic year for Rhoana, as she was preceded in death by kidney failure by her son, David, in June and her husband, Harold, in October. While she was frank in her assessment that the year was the worst of her life, she remained as cheery as could be expected until the very end. She is survived by her daughter Noel Schone (Ryan), daughter-in-law Kathy Shaw, younger brother Bruce Atkinson (Chris), and grandchildren Steven, Michael, Heather, Alex, Ellie, Emily, Alex, Adam, and Mila.
She will be deeply missed.
