Karen Harker

KAREN LARSON HARKER, a beloved wife and mother, departed this life peacefully at her Lethbridge home on Friday, May 7, 2010 at the age of 71. She will be sorely missed by her husband Gary, sons Dan (Cathy), Kyle (Lisa), Ruston, and grandchildren: Rylan, Jacen, Cambrie, Kylee, Ashlyn, Tyler and Kolby. Karen was born in Murray, Utah on July 3, 1938 to Marvin and Edna Larson. She grew up in the brick house south of Main Street park in Sandy. After high school Karen lived with her Uncle Boyd and Aunt LaVonne in Hollywood, CA. where she worked in a bank She eventually returned to Utah to go to school. She met Gary while attending Brigham Young University. They were wed in the Salt Lake Temple on April, 10, 1961 and Gary took her north to make a home in Edmonton. Karen found work at the Royal Bank. Dan arrived two years later and the family promptly pulled up stakes and moved to the Peace River Country where Gary gathered news for the Edmonton Journal while Karen mothered her new son. Kyle arrived during their four-year stay in Grande Prairie, then it was back to Edmonton and later Red Deer. Ruston caught up with the family in Red Deer. For a time Karen worked in the office at Red Deer College. In 1974 the family moved to Lethbridge. After more than 10 years of marriage and seemingly constant moving, Karen had no idea she would spend more than half her life in one home among friends on a quiet crescent. That's how it turned out. She helped at Ruston's kindergarten, cheered Dan at his baseball games, followed Kyle's high school basketball career in gymnasiums all over the South. She returned to the Royal and completed more than 25 years with the bank before retirement in 1999. Her sons grew up, married and moved away. One of the landmark events she enjoyed recalling was the month she spent with Gary and other family members travelling in England. Then across the channel to Europe where the two of them eventually made their way to Malmo, Sweden, home of her ancestors. Karen enjoyed playing the piano, cooking Swedish meat balls, crocheting comforters, creating numerous oil paintings that are a delight on the walls of her home and the homes of her family, vacationing by car, tenting on the Pacific shore, hunkering down in the dark of the Movie Mill of an afternoon. She took pleasure in her friends at TOPS. She was an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often fulfilling callings in Primary and Young Women's. She had the foresight to spend nearly two months late last year visiting her sons and other relatives in Utah and California. She is predeceased by her parents and a daughter, first of her children but still-born in Edmonton. She is survived by her husband and sons, a sister Carol (Todd) Hanson, of Nibley, UT, and a brother Kyle (Nancy) of Riverton, WY. Friends may meet the family on Wednesday evening, May 12 from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. at GENERATIONS FUNERAL HOME, 703-13 Street North, Lethbridge, or prior to the funeral service on Thursday from 10:00 to 10:45 a.m. at the church. Funeral Services will be held on Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 11:00 a.m. at THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS, Lethbridge East Stake Centre, 4105 Forestry Avenue South in Lethbridge with Bishop Doug Wilde officiating. Graveside Services will be held in the Glenwood Cemetery on the Blue Trail, two miles northeast of the village at 3:00 p.m.

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