Alaina Newhart

Alaina Newhart

Hurricane, UT and Cane Beds, AZ

aka GLENNA HALL

AUG 1924 — SEP 2014

Alaina Newhart "walked out of here" as she liked to put it at age 90 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She had spent the month of August visiting friends and family in Utah and California.

Born Glenna Hall, in Hurricane, Utah, to parents Alvin and Ann (Pickett) Hall, she is survived by her children: Dinah Hamilton (Las Vegas, NV); Wayne Neilson (Vista, CA); Craig Neilson (Vista, CA); Merridy Jeffery (Dorr, MI); April Neilson (San Francisco, CA) and Glenda Crapo (Draper, UT). Surviving siblings are Lorna Flater, Roland Hall, Beverly McNamara (Hurricane, UT), and Vard Hall (St. George, UT). She has ten grandchildren and thirteen great grandchildren, and appreciated them all.

A casual Memorial / Life Celebration will be planned in Hurricane, Utah.

Good nutrition was Alaina's religion, and she preached it to anyone who would listen. She enjoyed being physically active with yoga, line-dancing (at age 88), and hiking Havasupai twice in her late 60's. Well into her 80's, she could still do the splits. As a kid she often won the races during Peach Days.

She learned to speak up with Dale Carnegie training, and got 4.0 grades at Trade Tech in Salt Lake. She liked meditation, spiritual gurus and other-worldly knowledge. She learned much from Lazarus and Abraham channelings. A life-long seeker, she took self-improvement seminars whenever possible and embraced whatever tools she could find: John Bradshaw, Eckhart Tolle, Ho'oponopono, VibraKeys, Tom Kenyon, Cameron Day, EFT, and especially liked George Pratt's Code To Joy.

Her quick wit and sense of humor zinged one-liners often. When hearing about a young couple's plans to marry after a short courtship, she pronounced, "Why that's scandalous; people should have to live together first!"

She sang good alto harmony, but in her late-70's discovered a higher vocal range —screaming through the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.

Not afraid of hard work, in her 80's she built a deck, a sandstone patio, hauled firewood and drove herself 35 miles to town weekly. She was a quilter, played piano and took up violin again at age 89. An accomplished artist, she painted Zion landscapes and a "rock wall" in her kitchen.

For her early life in Hurricane, pick up a copy of her memoir at the Hurricane Heritage Museum or at the Library: Black Rocks and Cold Wind—Surviving the Good Old Days. She was genuine and a true, one-of-a-kind inspiration.