With her having been diagnosed 11 years ago with a life-robbing disease, you would think I might know what to say about the greatest person I have ever known. Though the last six years have been silent in our verbal communication, when I laid her head on my lap and stroked her forehead each evening, I felt her love and prayed that she may feel mine.

This little small-town girl, born in Delta, Utah on August 6, 1957 and raised in Kanosh was the homecoming queen of her high school, something I knew nothing of until years later when I saw a picture of her with a crown on her head in a family photo album and asked her mother, Roena, why she was wearing it. On another occasion when we were engaged, I stopped at the local mercantile store in Kanosh. An old boy in faded ragged blue bib overalls and a sweat-stained wide-brimmed hat, recognized me as her fiancé and said, “She’s one of the finest girls that ever came from these parts,” and farmers don’t lie.

MaryAnn Shields blessed our family with one daughter and six sons. Upon the birth of our oldest son and second child, Quinn, the nurse at the hospital in Bellevue, Washington entered the recovery room and asked, “Would you like an intrauterine device?” and without missing a beat MaryAnn shot back, “Heck no! We’re just getting started.”

Her compassion for others was endless. It was early on a sunny June morning in 1998 when all our kids were still at home. I had been in front by the road watering flowers when a 17-year-old boy, Joey, a run-a-way who had been walking all night, asked me how far it was to the freeway. I pointed west and said about three miles. Coming in for breakfast a few minutes later, I mentioned this to MaryAnn. Withthout saying anything she got in the old black Aerostar van and came back shortly with Joey. She put an extra plate on the table, washed his clothes and gave him some of the boy’s underwear and made him a bed downstairs.

The animals were wild over her. She nursed a bird back to health in a shoebox who had lost a leg caught in a fence. Though nimble with scissors in sewing, she could cut out the nastiest burs in the cat’s hair. When Annie, our silver German Shepherd, crossed the line in the dangerous game of nipping at the hocks of the horses, Sheeza got lucky with a kick from her hind leg and broke Annie’s shoulder. MaryAnn and Patrick made a stretcher out of plywood and hauled Annie off to the vet.

Music was a passion and pleasure for MaryAnn. This was passed down by Grandma Norma who played the piano, organ, and violin. I was moved by the duets MaryAnn and Derek played on the piano, particularly when they galloped through the Stars and Stripes Forever at breakneck speed. Some of my most cherished moments were sitting in a vacant choir seat in church by the organ waiting for MaryAnn to join me after she played the sacrament hymn; a quietness, peace, a spiritual non-verbal dialog that made me glad I was married to her as I held her hand.

The heroes in her life were her family, her children and grandchildren, and even a great granddaughter, Kadence. But the real hero was Shanda who drove from Alpine to Salem at least two days a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and sometimes a week at a time for the past eight years to care for MaryAnn while I worked or shopped. I often said to Shan, “Go get a fun job, buy fun clothes, and go to lunch with fun people and eat fun food, and do fun things.” And she always said, “No Dad. I want to be with Mom.” A few days ago I again said to Shanda, “What you have done in caring for Mom is incredible.” Her reply was, “I would have done it forever.”

For this teenage bride who married me 49 years ago, I shall forever thank my Heavenly Father. The house is quiet. I miss bathing her, changing her, feeding her, and miss so very greatly brushing her hair and putting it in a ponytail with one of those elastic things. I miss turning her over in the night and wedging myself between the chrome metal rails of the narrow hospice bed and feeling her warm body next to mine and hearing her rhythmic breathing. In all the years of this illness which often changes the personality of the individual, the harshest thing MaryAnn every said was, “Oh Golly.”

MaryAnn Shields Steadman passed away on Thursday, November 6, 2025. There will be a viewing in her honor on Wednesday, November 12, 2025 at Walker Funeral Home  located at 187 South Main Street in Spanish Fork, UT from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. An additional viewing will be held the following morning, Thursday, November 13, 2025 from 9:45 – 10:45 a.m. at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints located at 695 South 300 West in Salem, UT. The funeral service will immediately follow at 11:00 a.m. at the same location. Interment will be in the Salem City Cemetery.

The funeral service for MaryAnn Steadman will be streamed live. Please return to her memorial page shortly before 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, November 13, 2025 and click on the link below.

MaryAnn Steadman Livestream Broadcast