Obituary

Gloria Lucy Kimball Miller achieved her heart’s greatest desire on the night of July 22, 2022. She was joyously reunited with the love of her life, her husband, Max, who had passed away many years before. She left us quickly with a laugh on her lips and cheer in her heart. We couldn’t have hoped for a better departure from this mortal world for her.

Gloria, the oldest of three daughters, was born on September 28, 1933 in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Heber Chase Kimball and Lucy Anna Dorothea Meier. Lucy was Heber’s fourth marriage, so Gloria had many older siblings. She was the last surviving member of her large family. The long-awaited reunion with her many loved ones will surely be a wonderful event!

Gloria’s parents were devout in their Latter-Day Saint beliefs and reared their daughters with the same intensity. Gloria never wavered in her desire of knowing of and striving to live the ‘Gospel of Jesus Christ’. She always had a ‘religious book’, as she called them, on a side table near her bedside or chair. She consistently read the scriptures for guidance and with a continued thirst for knowledge.

When Gloria was six years old, she came down with rheumatic fever. She was bedridden for many months, followed by a very long recovery. She returned to school two years behind her peers. She often said it was awkward for her and she always felt out of place. The fever damaged the mitral valve of her heart, and she then began her life with an impaired organ, a condition referred to as a ‘heart murmur’, but she NEVER let it stand in her way of living her life. She never had any health issues with it until she was thirty-eight years old.

Gloria’s parents moved their little family to St. George when she was a young teen and she said it was the highlight of her life and her most favorite place to be. She loved the heat of Utah’s Dixie. In fact, ninety degrees was just the right temperature for her to start getting warmed up. Pretty sure it was never too warm for her. Even on the warmest of days for you and me, Gloria could be found with a sweater draped over her shoulders. Just in case, you know, if she got cold.

Gloria loved the simple things in life. Early in her marriage to Max, they would load the kids into the car to take a jaunt down the road, often a dirt one, with no intended destination. With an adventurous mind-set, kind of like ‘the bear who went over the mountain to see what he could see’, Sunday rides were the norm for their family. As her children became parents, this ‘love’ was adopted by them and, when the urge to ‘take a ride’ came upon any one of them, Mom was always dragged along. It didn’t take much ‘dragging’ though, for she dearly loved to take these rides.

Gloria looked forward to every family get-together with her kids and grandkids. She loved the annual Miller Family Campout during the summer. Camping was dear to her heart. Gloria loved getting together for backyard cookouts on Memorial Day and Labor Day. She enjoyed the Fourth of July parade with the cookout in the afternoon, then the fireworks that later lit up the night sky. She oohed and aahed along with the kids. She especially loved the family Christmas party but the Thanksgiving Day dinner and then playing games afterward was probably her most favorite gathering of all. Mom loved to gather with her large family and to simply enjoy the time spent together. She often recalled those enjoyable times.

Gloria became an avid bowler and truly enjoyed the years she bowled on the bowling leagues. Gloria’s heart issues worsened as the years rolled by. She did not have heart disease but rather, a rheumatic heart with damaged valves that were later surgically replaced. In November 2010, when she was fitted with a defibrillator, she was formally diagnosed with ‘chronic heart failure’. We were told her condition would never improve but would slowly deteriorate over time. And yet, she remained with us, in good health, for nearly twelve more years. We are so lucky to have had this this extension of time, given to us.

Gloria was passionate about her belief in the ’Gospel’, and in living it to the best of her ability. Her deeply held love of her children and grandchildren, along with the interaction with them, were Gloria’s reasons for living.

We want to express our gratitude and appreciation to Cynthia, her youngest daughter, in assuming the responsibility of caring for Mom/Gloria, for the last six years. As a whole, we are very grateful for Cynthia’s efforts, time, and energy to be her constant companion, day in and day out. We know it wasn’t often easy.

We have truly been blessed to have you, Gloria, in our lives as a mother, an aunt, a grandmother and a friend. Thank you for all you’ve shown us, taught us, lived alongside with us and everything else in between, good, and bad. You will be dearly and poignantly missed and, yet, we will forever have the fondest memories of your long sojourn here with us, upon this earth. Bittersweet memories at first but they will become joyous to our hearts in the years to come.

We love you, Mom, Aunt Gloria, Grandma, and dear friend. God speed to ‘taking a ride’ on the new adventure that awaits you, to wherever that may be and to whomever it may be with. We love you! Forever and always!!

Gloria was preceded in death by her oldest son, James and is survived by her children, Patricia, Kenneth, Neileen, David, Cynthia and Michael.

She is a proud grandmother of nineteen grandchildren and fifteen great-grandchildren. Gloria was blessed to have all her children and grandchildren live near her for the majority of her life. Not bad for someone who was told to never have any children because of her damaged heart. Congrats Mom/Grandma!

Services for Gloria Lucy Kimball Miller will be held on Friday July 29, 2022. A viewing will be held from 11:00 a.m.– 12:45 p.m. at McDougal Funeral Home, 4330 S. Redwood Road. A graveside service will be held at Taylorsville Memorial Park Cemetery, 4575 S Redwood Road, at 1:00 pm. Interment at Taylorsville Memorial Park Cemetery.