Mourning the Passing of Friends: Forthcoming Funeral Service

“What we have once enjoyed we can never lose.All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” ~ Helen Keller Forthcoming funeral services are planned for the following friends from our community. Complete versions of these obituaries may also be found in The Payson Chronicle.

Mabeth Fern Nielsen

Mabeth Fern (Nielsen) Southwick was born on January 2, 1942 in Payson, Utah. Mabeth passed away on February 16, 2020 in Payson, Utah after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.  She was 78 years old. She was preceded in death by her parents, Lauritz and Fern Nielsen and brother La Var.  

Mabeth grew up in Spring Lake.  She attended the old Spring Lake school and graduated from Payson High.   Much of her childhood was spent exploring and enjoying the beauty , fishing and hunting in the surrounding mountains of Spring Lake.    She attended Brigham Young University where she met her future husband, Stephen Southwick. They settled in Santa Maria, California where Mabeth focused her life on raising her children to be sassy, independent and strong adults.  She emphasized reading from the very beginning and as her kids grew up, this translated into a career as an Elementary School librarian at Nightingale school. She helped hundreds of kids develop a love for the written word and they adored her for it.  She retired in 2006. The first thing she did was to force her husband Steve to keep his word to move back to her beloved mountains and Utah.  

She was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and enjoyed many callings, especially in Primary and family history.   Mabeth indexed thousands of names for family history research. She served an at-home mission screening thousands of photos for use in Church archives.   

Mabeth was an avid public school advocate and served faithfully in the Parent Teacher Associations at Arellanes and Dunlap Elementary Schools.  She believed in community service and dragged her kids along as she donated blood at Red Cross Blood Drives and as she regularly volunteered in local elections. Wrapped in  blankets, she weathered scores of baseball, football and soccer games in cold, windy Santa Maria winds. She was a talented artist who shared her intricate Ukrainian eggs with many of us.  She quilted, knitted and used her creative skills in many ways to bring color into our lives - especially color. 

Survivors include her spouse, Stephen Lynn Southwick, Payson, UT, her six children, Stephanie Hull(Gerrit) Santa Maria, CA, Suzanne Wilde (Trae) El Dorado, CA, Michelle Wood -Dallas, TX, Craig Southwick (Christina) Fort Collins, CO, Bradley Southwick (Celeste) Salt Lake City, UT, and Anna-Liisa Yahn (Sean) Portland, OR. Mabeth adored each of her eighteen grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren.  Her sister Jeanine lives in Provo with her husband Donald.