Lydia Mary Hook

Lydia Mary Stewart Hook, 91, died Sunday, June 20, 2010 at the Good Samaritan Center.

She was born March 20, 1919 in Teton City, Idaho, the youngest daughter of Joseph William and Sarah Ann Godfrey Stewart.

Lydia grew up with one brother and three sisters. She had pneumonia three times by the time she was six years old, so she didn’t attend first grade until she was seven. She graduated from Madison High School in Rexburg, Idaho.

Following the death of her parents, she lived with her sister, Edna, who had always been close to her. She worked at Western Optical Company in Idaho Falls, Idaho until the day after her 25

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birthday when she enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC); serving in Des Moines, Iowa, San Bernardino, California, Dayton, Ohio and two years in Yokahama, Japan. Following her discharge in 1948, she attended embalming college in Cincinnati, Ohio, and in 1952 she filled an LDS mission in Scotland, Wales and England, then returning to Cincinnati. In 1958 she moved to Los Angeles as a private practical nurse, and as an attendant at Utter McKinley Mortuary. She had never been to Los Angeles, but went alone and walked the streets until she found an apartment in a home to rent. She always lived in a home, not in an apartment building. She had many handicapped friends and served them in many ways. She retired in 1989.

Lydia was assistant clerk in her California ward and did lots of typing. She wrote many poems and stories, and was the best typist her sister, Sara had ever known. Lydia moved back to Idaho Falls and married Alfred Hook, in the Idaho Falls LDS Temple, on 18 September, 1992. Alfred was a widower she had dated when she was about nineteen years old. He died of cancer in the March, 1998. Her nephew, John Weber, Jr. became her power of attorney and helped her to settle in Lincoln Court in Idaho Falls to live. Lydia seemed very happy during this time and served in the Idaho Falls Temple weekly. After two years, she fell and broke her hip, and with Parkinson’s disease, she moved to a nursing home, Good Samaritan Care Center. It was a difficult adjustment for her and has been in a wheel chair for the past eleven years. After Sara became a widow, Lydia expressed her desire for her to move to Idaho Falls to live with her.

Lydia was a very special spirit and very intelligent, with many talents. She accomplished a lot in her life, had a strong testimony and kept a list of many to whom she performed ordinance work.

Lydia is survived by seven step-children, many step grandchildren, and many step great grandchildren, one sister, Sara Weber of South Jordan, Utah; many nieces, nephews and cousins.  She was preceded in death by her husband, three brothers and two sisters.

Graveside services will be at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 22 at the Teton-Newdale Cemetery under the direction of Nalder Funeral Home in Shelley.