Lola Marie Nash Huggins Ottley

1922 - 2020

Lola Marie Nash, Huggins, Ottley

(APRIL 17, 1922- MAY 13, 2020) Lola Marie Nash, Huggins, Ottley, age 98 succumbed after a four-month battle with pneumonia on May 13, 2020 at Ridgeview Gardens Assisted Living in St. George, Utah. Lola survived her second husband, George Ottley, after a 12-year marriage.

Born in Salem, Utah, to Elizabeth Rasmussen and George Nash, Lola was the youngest child of five, born after her four older brothers. She served in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) during World War II. She earned her Bachelor's Degree in Home Economics and her Master's Degree in Special Education with a specialty in educable mentally handicapped. She held teaching positions in both Utah and Illinois. In Utah, she taught at: Farmington, Vernal, Aneth, Blanding, and Kanab. In Illinois, she taught at Lockport.

She met her husband Ray Huggins during World War II when he served as a sailor in the US Navy and she as a Signal Corps message courier in the WAC. After the war, Lora married Ray Huggins and the couple gave birth to nine children. Lola's children agree that their mother endowed them with a passion for lifelong learning, a dogged tenacity, and a conviction that love transcends hate and cynicism.

She participated actively in the LDS Church. She served on two missions: First, with her husband George, in Texas/Oklahoma and later, as his widow, at the LDS Genealogical Library in Salt Lake City. She also served the LDS Church in other roles including Sunday School Teacher, Singles Group Member (where she met her husband George), Relief Society Officer, and Book Club Founder. In addition, she sewed countless dresses and other children's wear for LDS-supported refugee children. For as long as she was able, she attended the temple weekly.

After her second husband died, Lola's friends and family helped her live independently at her Kanab home for most of her remaining years. That group included daughters Moni (who moved next door), Michelle, Lola Amanda; her Kanab LDS Sisters and Brothers (especially Brother Griffiths), as well as friends (especially Nicola and Steve Dahl). When she could no longer live on her own, that same group, as well as the Staff of Ridgeview Gardens Assisted Living in St. George, helped her to stay engaged and enabled her to die in her own bed, surrounded by friends and family, without fear or pain.

Please make memorial donations in Lola Ottley's memory to Ridgeview Gardens Assisted Living, 220 South, 1200 East, St. George, Utah 84790.

SHE WAITS

By Michelle Huggins

She sits in her room and waits this is not new to her in April she turns 98

When she was young she waited as the price of silver crashed waited with her mom and brothers for some faraway street that was really a wall to be rebuilt so that she could get new shoes and take the Montgomery Ward catalogue back from its spot in the wooden outhouse that she shivered in every morning before school

Then she waited to turn 18, waited to leave Naples Utah, population 3000 one stoplight on Vernal Avenue and Main waited to join a cause but mostly to get out

Next as a WAC she waited and learned millions were dying she as an Ally continued waiting as Harry Truman replaced FDR as Oppenheimer and a few scientists at Los Alamos developed a solution and the Enola Gay delivered the Axis surrender

Then she waited through the GI Bill though a marriage to Ray Huggins they used their education benefit he choosing law she to teach

Waited through dirty diapers, teething, earaches, and tonsillectomies, Elaine, Jo, Moni, Toni, Ron, Bret me, Lola Mae and Tom sat in as ERA was defeated listened to Phyllis Schlafly and Betty Friedan worked right through the great women's stay at home debate

Even then she appreciated the concept the right to burn a bra or draft papers or even a flag if you were that passionate

Because she read the Life article and she wasn't very proud of William Calley or how her government handled My Lai but all the same she kept her bras and still sided with Gloria Steinem

She waited till the last of her brood quit brooding and flew her nest waited for a divorce decree and the house to sell

Moved to Blanding Utah waited for a van to bring the few things left In Blanding she continued waiting for the government to fund the special needs program she taught for the next ten years

Then she met and married George from her church and waited with him for Parkinson's to win until for the first time in her life she was waiting without watching out for anyone else

On her own she waited with her friends from book club waited and quilted and sewed until her joints were too stiff to use the needle that she could no longer thread then at last she couldn't wait alone

Now she is waiting at Ridgeview Gardens in St George but now she can't have visitors because she is too old and has pneumonia pulmonary illness, complications from poor circulation made worse by sitting

Now even if she could get up and wander they won't let her because there is a new disease she is too old to survive it so for her own good no visitors, no contact, no uncooked fruit