Irene Roberta Hougaard Atkin

1921 ~ 2013
Irene Roberta Hougaard Atkin left this life on Thursday, December 19, 2013 as a result of pneumonia.
She was born September 28, 1921 in Manti, Utah to Agnes Marie Erickson and Ralph Hansen Hougaard and grew up in Manti surrounded by cousins and friends. She attended Snow College and Brigham Young University.
She was an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, completing two stake missions and serving many years as a teacher as well as pianist for the various auxiliaries through the years.
Prior to her marriage to Claude Frank Atkin in the Salt Lake Temple on December 8, 1967, she worked as a secretary in the Church Offices for many years and eight years prior to that in the Salt Lake City office of Senator Frank E. Moss. She taught piano lessons until she was 88 years old and loved to play duets with her students. She also spent many hours playing the piano at rest homes to the delight of the residents. After macular degeneration robber her of the ability to read music, she could still play, for hours at a time, music she had memorized earlier in her life. Irene enjoyed rock hounding, oil painting, collecting dolls and visiting on the phone or in person with her many friends. She loved and studied the scriptures her whole life. Irene spent the last 3 and ½ years of her life living with her brother and his family in North Salt Lake. She was greatly blessed by her special friends from Tooele who kept in touch with her by daily phone calls.
She was preceded in death by her parents, both sisters: Peggy Ann and Beverly Jean, two brothers: Ralph Gail and Jon Paul, her husband and her step-son, Frank Atkin and grand daughter Tamara Palmer. She is survived by her: step-children: Lorraine (Darrell) Painter, Tooele, Utah; Frank's widow, Monica Atkin, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Claudann (Boyd) Loveless, Kaysville, Utah; sister-in-law Dona Hougaard, Santa Maria, California; a brother, Hugh (LuCene) Hougaard, North Salt Lake, Utah; twelve grand children, twenty-nine great grandchildren, ten great-great grandchildren, twelve Hougaard nieces and nephews, and lots of great nieces and nephews.
There will be a viewing on Tuesday, December 26, 2013, from 9:30 until 10:45 a.m. with a funeral to follow at 11 a.m. at the Tate Mortuary at 110 S Main Street, Tooele, Utah for friends and family, will be in the Tooele City Cemetery.