Joann Reese Campbell

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Joann Reese Campbell, age 93, formerly of Alton, Utah, passed away on August 16, 2023, in Parowan,
Utah. Joann was born in Glendale, California on July 22, 1930, to Joseph Hyrum Reese and Amy Linder
Reese. She lived in Mount Carmel, Utah until her graduation from Valley High School in 1948. After
marrying Vane L Campbell in 1949, she settled in Alton, Utah and lived there until relocating to Parowan,
Utah in 2010.
Joann was the oldest of eight children, and she was like a second mother to her younger brothers and
sisters. That was a vocation that suited her perfectly.
After graduating Valedictorian from Valley High School, she attended Dixie College just long enough to
realize that her real place was to be a mother and a homemaker. She had met Vane L Campbell on the
first day of school when she started seventh grade, and he decided the first time he saw her that he was
going to marry her. They were married at Vanes home on a snowy day on January 6, 1949 in Alton, Utah,
and later sealed for eternity in the St George Temple. They settled in Alton, and she began a life of love
that will never end.
They spent their first summer together, her honeymoon as she describes it, on Cedar Mountain in a
sheep wagon, with two or three of her younger brothers.
Joann and Vane had an idyllic marriage and a happy life together for 69 years. Vane passed away in
2014. Their relationship was one of complete and unconditional love and respect that is not often
duplicated. In 2009 The Utah Commission on Marriage recognized their dedication to each other and
their family with a Gold Medal Mariage Award presented in a state ceremony at the Salt Palace
Convention Center in Salt Lake City. Never has a couple been more deserving of that honor.
Joann became an excellent cook, her gardening skills were epic, and she could preserve and store
vegetables and fruits and meats to ensure food supplies through long cold Alton winters. She could sew
anything, she crocheted and knitted, and she served and loved everyone around.
She became especially proficient at making quilts. She made hundreds of pieced quilts, quilted
comforters, wall hangings, bedspreads, and camp quilts. Her quilting was immaculate, thousands of tiny
little perfect stitches in straight lines and flashy curves, one after the other, just like her life. One day
after the other, straight to the point with flashes of fun and humor to make things interesting and
endurable.
No one could get more done in a day than Joann. She somehow never seemed to need to sleep. Always
up around four thirty in the morning, she was busy until midnight. She worked tirelessly, and she never
lost her sense of humor or her enthusiasm and joy of living and of the beautiful things in life.
Joann loved to dance, and her and Vane traveled all over Southern Utah square dancing for many years.
She was an accomplished musician. She played piano, saxophone, violin, accordion, guitar, and
mandolin. She had a beautiful singing voice and her and Vane teamed up with a few other old timers in
Alton and formed a dance band. An entire generation of young people grew up dancing to their music at
high school dances, church socials, ward parties, and other get togethers. Evenings in their home were
spent around the piano, singing their favorites.
She never had any spare time, but still she somehow managed to read novels, put puzzles together and
do crossword puzzles.
Circumstances made it necessary for her to find employment outside the home and she had several
careers including a waitress, a sewing machine operator and later a manager at the sewing plant, a bank
teller, and a Librarian at the Valley Elementary School. She never let her work outside the home
interfere with that most important mission in her home.
She suffered from macular degeneration and slowly lost her eyesight over the last 10 years. Eventually
she could see very little and so could do very little, but she was still able to pin quilt blocks together and
even sew them on her sewing machine, just by feel and by habit.
Joann was an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and served in many
callings. She once said her favorite church calling was, "the one where she could take the snakes away
from the little boys trying to scare her with them and shove the snakes back in their faces.". She loved
children and was happy in Primary jobs. She also loved attending the temple and tried to get there
often.
Joann has her sight back now and her feet don't hurt. She can dance again as she joins her loving Vane,
Her parents, Joe and Amy Reese, her son Vane Orlan Campbell, her great grandchildren Dylan Overson
and Addison Woffinden, her sister Sharon Willis, and her brothers Lane Reese, Kenley Reese, and Leslie
Reese.
Mourning her passing while celebrating her life are her surviving children Daughter in Law Jeannette
Campbell of Richfield Utah, Leo (JoAnn) Campbell of Delta, Utah, Janet (Louis) Amodt of Bountiful, Utah,
Renee (Gary) Overson of Parowan, Utah, Victor (Valoy) Campbell of Mesquite, Nevada, and Dane
(Susan) Campbell of Quirnbach, Germany (stationed at Ramstein Air Base). She is also survived by her
brothers Neil (Mary) Reese and Jeffry Reese, and her sister Carol Reese. Her 29 grandchildren and 60
great grandchildren and 1 great great grandchild also mourn the passing of their "Homemade
Grandma".
Funeral services will be held Saturday Aug 26 at 12:00 noon at the Alton Ward Chapel in Alton, Utah.
Friends may call at the Alton Ward Building that morning from 10:00 to 11:30 Am. Burial will be in the
Alton Cemetery.