Sherian Underwood

Sherian Ann Underwood

May 31, 1944 ~ August 3, 2021

Sherian Ann Underwood, born May 31, 1944 in Ogden, Utah, passed away August 3, 2021 in Clearfield, Utah. Sherian attended Washington Elementary/Junior High and Ogden High School in Ogden, Utah and obtained degrees from the University of Utah and Brigham Young University.

While attending the University of Utah, she was employed by the LDS Church to develop and program genealogy software (in zeroes and ones).  She also helped develop the DARPA NET (predecessor to what is now the Internet) while at the University of Utah and later at Stanford University.  In addition to her work at Stanford she was also associated with the University of California at Irvine. While at these universities She taught Computer Science and Mathematics. Sherian also lived and worked for a time in Halifax, Nova Scotia. After obtaining Landed Immigrant status, she taught Mathematics and Computer science at Mount Saint Vinson University (MSVU) In Halifax.

In 2001, she returned to Clearfield, Utah to assist her sister Carol in caring for her father, James Loyd Underwood, who was suffering from cancer. Upon his death in 2002, Sherian stayed on to help care for her younger sister Carol Underwood Brackett, who passed in 2007 and her mother Mary Amason Underwood Farnworth, who passed in 2012.

Sherian is survived by her brother, Gene Kenneth (Joe) Underwood; her stepsister, Karen Weaver and her husband, Dave Weaver; her stepbrother, Scott Searles and his wife, Cathy; and cousins, Dennis and Catherine Wink.

Sherian who’s Shambhala (Buddhist) name was “Pure Kindness” had many Buddhist friends in California and Nova Scotia who are arranging services for her in those locations. In accordance with her wishes, after her cremation, a portion of her ashes will be interred in Clearfield City Cemetery in a gravesite near those of her mother and sister.  The remainder to be scattered on Antelope Island, Utah, a place she called her spiritual refuge. Arrangements entrusted to Lindquist’s Ogden Mortuary.