Mary Anne Holmoe

Our cherished mom and Grandma, Mary Anne Holmoe passed away peacefully Sunday, March 13, 2022, at the Coventry Memory Care facility, where she was lovingly cared for. Mary Anne was born on a steamy, hot day in Washington, D.C. August 13, 1930. She was the daughter of Gilbert L. and Florence Hull Yetter. Her parents were always loving and supportive of her and her sister, Corinne Claire. Her dad was an engineer with the Navy Department working for the Bureau of Reclamation who was offered the challenging opportunity of working on engineering projects constructing dams under FDR’s New Deal programs. Thus, when she was three years old, they embarked upon the trek west, where they lived in Boulder City, Nevada for several years. That was the beginning of her dad's work at Grand Coulee, Shasta and Friant Dams. Her dad's role took them to various parts of the west and caused her to attend thirteen different schools in grade school and high school. She still remembered being the "new girl" in the cafeteria and struggling with the problem of having to eat alone at a new school. When high school graduation rolled around in Redding, California, there was a veritable scramble among different schools to assemble her credits. She followed in the footsteps of sister Corinne and attended Stanford University at the tender age of 16. She graduated from Stanford in 1947 with a Degree in Social Work and was employed as a Ranger-Naturalist with the National Park Service for many years, after which she worked as a legal secretary and law clerk. She met her sweetheart, then husband, Olaf (Ole) Holmoe in the none-too-romantic setting of a bowling league in Denver, Colorado, on a kind-of blind date. They were married for 54 years. Ole preceded Mary Anne in death, almost 6 years to the day, March 14, 2016. They had two children, Heidi Lynn Holmoe and Garth Alan Holmoe (Salina), and three grandchildren, Connor Gabriel Orso, Lidia Ida Solana Llanos and Evan Gabriel Holmoe. Mary Anne supported Ole in developing a thriving business via two stores called Junior Bootery, where they specialized in the field of orthopedic and well-fitted leather shoes for children. After working as a caseworker for the Division of Family Services for several years, she returned to the collegiate arena and obtained a Master’s of Social Work in 1970, from the University of Utah, receiving the Phi Sigma Phi academic award and the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy individual women's scholarship award. She was privileged thereafter to work as a social worker in the fields of foster care, developmental disabilities, home health and adoptions. Her greatest fulfillment in social work came when, at age 69, she joined Donna Pope at Heart to Heart Adoptions, Inc, and watched it grow and flourish as a burgeoning adoption agency. She cherished those professional relationships well beyond her employment there. Her greatest desire was to leave behind a family legacy of eternal love and for them to feel encircled by the memory of her deep devotion to them even from the world beyond. To her husband Ole, she wished to convey that he had been the dearest husband anywhere for enabling them to have such a mutually GREAT relationship for those many years. They shared many laughs and some tears, and she was grateful for having lived so happily in their old first apartment near the capital in North Salt Lake, their Fortuna way home in Holladay, their Payday Condo in Park City and their retirement years at Old Farm. In her own words, she wished to convey, “Thank you, my beautiful family, for the treasures you have been in my life. I feel as if I have been the most fortunate person in the world for being blessed by each of you.” In lieu of flowers, memorial donations to the Salt Lake City Humane Society are preferred.

Mary Anne Holmoe

August 13, 1930 - March 13, 2022