Nita Marie Owens

Nita Marie Smith Owens, 79, of Orem, Utah, died of natural causes on 29 May 2024 and was reunited with her beloved Lyle. 

Nita was born in Macon, Georgia on 18 October 1944, the first of four children of Thomas Hiskey Smith and Mildred Catherine George. Her father was stationed at Cochran Field in the Army Air Corps at the time of her birth. They soon moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, then Sterling, Colorado. In 1952, they moved to Grand Junction, Colorado. Nita graduated from Grand Junction High School in 1963. At 19 years old, Nita married. She had three children before divorcing and moving to Utah. 

Nita is a religious person. She attended Vacation Bible School when she was young. Her family attended the Presbyterian Church. While living in Aspen, Colorado, during her first marriage, she was invited to attend Relief Society. She was given a copy of A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, by LeGrand Richards. “There in black and white were the things I had felt all my life.” She was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 3 December 1967 when she was eight months pregnant.

After divorcing, Nita lived in the Orem North Stake. When that stake organized the Special Interest program for older single adults she met Joseph Lyle Owens, Sr. (Lyle) who was widowed with six children. 28 days after their first date, 15 February 1975, Lyle and Nita married in the Provo Temple. They celebrated with nine children at their side and added four more in the following years. The unity of their family was one of the most important things to Nita, and her greatest source of joy. Nita has always honored Lyle’s first wife, Blanche Allean Erickson, who died in 1974, and has been looking forward to meeting her.

Nita started sewing at about 11 years old and loved it all her life. She would babysit on Friday night, buy fabric on Saturday morning, and wear a new dress to church on Sunday! She became an excellent seamstress, sewing for her children and trading sewing for piano lessons, makeup, and decades of perms and haircuts.

Music was always important to Nita. She started by singing along to the radio as a child, then singing in a chorus in junior high. She sang in girl’s glee and a mixed chorus in high school and was in a hand bell choir at the Presbyterian church. After she was grown, she served as Ward Music Chairman, Sacrament Meeting Chorister, a member of Singing Mothers, ward choirs, and as Stake Music Chairman. For many years she sang in the Utah Valley Choral Society (a community mixed chorus).

After high school, Nita worked as nurse aide. Later she worked as a patient accounts representative at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center for 22 years. 

Nita found many friends wherever she went. She loved all of the many members of her and Lyle’s extended families. She loved her friends at work and church. She has always been good at loving every person as an individual.

Nita was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, her daughter-in-law Carolyn, her daughter Pam, and her granddaughter Christy; she is survived by her siblings David (Marilyn) Smith, Carol (Ben Dahl-deceased), and Michael (Vivian) Smith; her children Joe (Carolyn-deceased, Patti), Mark (Tracey), Matt (Alyssa), Pam-deceased (Marty Birch), Allean (Les Quibell), Al, Kathy, Sandy Moss, Lyman (Monica), Blanche (Brad Britton), Heather (Josh Pope), Tom (Summer), Georgi (Ryan Britton), and a growing posterity including 50 grandchildren, 72 great-grandchildren, and 2 great-great-grandchildren. 

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday, June 7, 2024, at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Chapel, 600 West 1050 North, Orem, Utah. Viewings for family and friends will be held from 6-8 p.m. on Thursday, June 6, 2024, at Wheeler-Sundberg Funeral Home, 495 South State Street, Orem, Utah and from 9:30-10:30 a.m. on Friday, June 7 at the church before the services. Burial will be in the Orem City Cemetery.