Steffie V. Larsen

Steffie Vlasic Larsen

LAYTON a€" Steffie Vlasic Larsen died Monday, April 5, 2010 of causes incident to age. She was 93. Steffie was born in Sunnyside, Utah on December 26, 1916 to Frances and Nick Vlasic, who had immigrated to the United States from Croatia in the early 1900s. She was the youngest of seven brothers and two sisters.

She was reared in Highland Boy, Utah, near Bingham Canyon where her father was a miner. In 1932 her family moved to Salem, Oregon. Her nieces, Ruby, Mary, Dorothy and Mildred, being near her age, were her close friends. She graduated from Salem High School. When her nieces moved back to Utah, she followed. She and Ruby worked at the Royal Bakery in Salt Lake. She also attended business school where she honed her typing and shorthand skills.

Steffie married Donald Ray Larsen on January 16, 1943 at a double-ring ceremony with Ruby and her husband in the Salt Lake City/County Clerk''s office. Don worked as a miner until he was drafted in 1944. She worked during World War II in a Utah arms plant as a welder of ammunition boxes. After the war, she and Don bought property in the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon where they built a home and raised laying hens. During the summer months, while Don worked as a logger, Steffie tended some 4,000 hens and gathered their eggs, helped by their two young daughters.

In 1960 she and Don sold the chicken ranch and moved to Layton, Utah. She worked as a civil service employee at Hill Air Force Base until she retired in 1981.

She was converted to the LDS Church by her husband and was baptized in 1954. Don died in 1981, but their marriage was sealed in 1989 in the Ogden LDS Temple. She held callings as a Blazer Scout leader, in the Young Women''s organization, as a family history name extractor and was ward program and newsletter editor for many years.

She left a legacy of the importance of hard work and was very caring and thoughtful. She was the first to want to go on a trip with family and the last to leave a social. And she was a clever Scrabble opponent. Her mind was clear and sharp throughout her life.

Steffie is survived by her daughters Lacey Rees (Richard) and Danielle Christopulos (Tom) of Layton. She leaves seven grandchildren: Kit Rees, Elsie Park, Barbara Knudsen, Nathan Rees, Kjerstine Warburton, Sunny Rae Magee, and Franja Warburton. She''s loved by nine great-grandchildren.

Funeral services will be held Friday, April 9, 2010 at 11 a.m. at the Valley View Ward, 2575 N. Valley View Drive in Layton, UT. Friends and family may call Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. at Lindquist''s Layton Mortuary, 1867 N. Fairfield Rd. and Friday from 9:45 to 10:45 a.m. at the Valley View Ward chapel. Interment, Larkin Sunset Gardens, 1900 E. 10600 So, Sandy, UT.