Lorraine Caroline Hogg Coats Baker

January 20, 1932 - January 11, 2015

Lorraine Caroline Hogg Coats Baker January 20, 1932 to January 11, 2015 Laurie Hogg, known affectionately for many years by school mates and family alike as “little Piggy” was born on a snowy winter day in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, the third of five children born to James Greig Hogg and Caroline Ratcliffe. Laurie was instantly little sister of Billy and Jimmy and eventually big sister to David and Sharon. In her early life in Canada, Laurie was a school cheerleader, a theatre usher and a telephone operator, not necessarily in that order. She remembered staying home sick one day from school and her teacher persuaded her friends it was time to call her Laurie not Piggy any more. When she returned to school the next day and her friends began calling her Laurie, she cried—certain they must all be mad at her. In her late teens, Laurie began accompanying her sister-in-law, Belle, to church to help with her three small children. In this way she was first able to Meet the Mormons and after Belle and brother Billy’s young family moved away, the missionaries continued to teach her. This resulted in two dramatic life-changing events for Laurie: she joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and she met a young Mormon missionary from Salt Lake City named Clyde Coats. The next year when Laurie’s father agreed to take his family to see Salt Lake City, every young convert’s dream, Clyde Coats was the only missionary she knew who had returned home so Laurie asked him to show them around the city and the rest is history. They were soon thereafter engaged to be married, but Clyde had been drafted so he first served two years in the Army, stationed in Korea while she wrote letters and eagerly awaited his return. Laurie and Clyde married August 11, 1954 in the Salt Lake City Temple and the first of their seven children who all survive her was David Clyde Coats (Ileen Williams), Rupert, Idaho, born nine months later followed in quick succession by Regina Coats (Michael) Wahlstrom, Portland, Oregon, named after Laurie’s birthplace although she always insisted Canadians mispronounce it; Christine Coats (Roy) Myers, Richfield, Utah; Scott Radcliffe Coats (Shelley Charlton), Rupert, Idaho, Laurie prettied up her mum’s maiden name for Scott; Juneve Coats (Richard) Stolworthy, Herriman, Utah named after a favorite neighbor; and eventually Matthew Earl Coats, Seattle, WA; and Rachel Coats (David) Anderson, Farmington, Utah. For years, Laurie retold family stories, dating them by remembering which child she was pregnant with when a particular event occurred. In 1959 the young Coats family and their first three children moved from Utah to Rupert, Idaho, where Clyde purchased Bishop Ready Mix, later renamed Triple C Concrete after Clyde’s brothers joined the business. Laurie and Clyde were married 44 years during which time both served valiantly in the church as well as in various community leadership roles—both were enthusiastic scouters and Laurie was a room mother and president of the PTA at Pioneer School. Laurie and Clyde loved their friends and neighbors in Christmas City USA and supported all kinds of community projects and activities. She supported Clyde as bishop of the Rupert 4th Ward and he supported her when she served as Relief Society President in both Rupert 4th Ward and later when they moved to live on the Snake River in Acequia in 1985. Laurie was a homemaker extraordinaire—she baked, she sewed, she crafted with her Relief Society sisters, and she loved her seven incorrigible children. On rainy days, her children knew there would be a warm cake or chocolate chip cookies waiting when they got off the bus. Other days it was only her warm whole wheat bread sliced thick with butter, honey, or homemade jam. Admittedly there were a few years when her kids yearned for plain white Wonder Bread, but mostly, mostly they appreciated her homemade whole wheat bread. Although raising seven children kept her busy physically and emotionally, Laurie opened her home in the 1960’s to a series of Indian Placement Students: Lovella Blackbear, Leona Brown, Tammy Red Cloud, and Frank Norris all spent one or more school years in the Coats home. Laurie was a great patriot in her adopted home of America. She always flew the flag at her home and held early morning flag ceremonies each 4th of July although as a green card carrying alien, she could not vote in US elections. She did not become a US citizen until 1997-- just a few weeks before leaving to serve with Clyde in the California San Bernardino Mission. Laurie was a voracious reader (and talker) and never passed the magazine rack at the grocery store without picking one up. In later years, she preferred biographies over other genres, but she was a great lover of Shakespeare and poetry and was wont to quote both frequently: “Sharper than a serpent’s tooth is an ungrateful child” or “And then my heart with rapture fills and dances with the daffodils” were a couple of her favorites. Mum watched her weight (and ours) very carefully through the years. You rarely talked to her that she didn’t mention her weight if you were lucky or yours if you were not. She loved a good diet plan and said Slim Fast was actually pretty tasty—if you put it in the blender with a couple scoops of ice cream. After Clyde died February 1, 1999 of lung cancer, Laurie remarried April 19, 2002 to the incomparable Jim Baker who farms and cooks with equal enthusiasm, asking Laurie each morning what she would like for breakfast. Laurie has been incredibly pampered, loved and protected by Jim’s capable hands and she would be the first to tell you so whenever you talked with her. With her seven children and his 12, the two of them have enthusiastically attended and supported the activities of 19 children and an ever-growing number of grand and great grandchildren. Laurie and Jim were temple ordinance workers in the Logan temple and served a six month mission in Cove Fort, Utah. In later years, Laurie suffered from diabetes, liver disease, and congestive heart failure which eventually took her from us on a snowy winter Sunday afternoon a few days before her 83rd birthday. Laurie’s feisty ways will be sorely missed by her dear husband, Jim Baker, her wonderful seven children, 29 grandchildren and 17 great grandchildren so far; brothers Jimmy and David and sister Sharon and sister-in-law Belle, all of whom still reside happily in Canada. She was preceded in death by her parents, husband Clyde, brother Billy, and two grandsons Jacob and Jordan. Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday January 17 at the Acequia LDS Church. Just drive to Acequia, Idaho and you will find it. Friends may call at Hansen Mortuary in Rupert, Idaho from 6-8 p.m. Friday and at the Acequia church one hour prior to the funeral on Saturday. Burial will follow at the Rupert Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family encourages contributions to the LDS Missionary Fund or to SmileTrain.org, an international children’s charity providing free cleft lip and palate repair surgery to children in 85+ developing countries.