Emilie Fuhriman Thatcher, 98, beloved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother passed away peacefully at the Sunshine Terrace in Logan.
Emilie was born April 20, 1903, in Providence, Utah to Jacob and Carolina Bollschweiler Fuhriman. As a young man her father, who had joined the Mormon Church in Switzerland in 1858, walked across the plains with other Utah pioneers. Emilie always expressed gratitude for her pioneer heritage and embodied the same strength of character they possessed in her own long and productive life.
Emilie's formal education ended shortly after the death of her father in 1914, when she left school and accepted employment as a housekeeper/nanny for President and Mrs. E. G. Peterson at Utah State Agricultural College (now USU.) This was done in order to assist her widowed mother in providing for her family. Later she was employed at Logan Knitting Mill until the time of her marriage to Orson Reeder Thatcher Jan. 9, 1936, in the Logan LDS Temple.
The young couple married during the Depression years, and money was scarce. They moved in with Orson's parents in Young Ward. Orson worked on the family farm while Emilie kept house in the two rooms they called their own.
Eventually Orson and Emilie purchased the farm and continued to live in Young Ward for the remainder of their married life.
All her life Emilie found great satisfaction in work and keeping busy. She was always up early in the morning completing many tasks, such as baking bread, washing clothes and preserving food before beginning her usual daily responsibilities.
In her spare time, Emilie loved to cook, crochet, make quilts and read the scriptures. Her children and grandchildren treasure the quilts and warm stocking caps she lovingly made for them. Her meals, especially those ending with her delicious cookies, cakes or pies, are remembered with great delight. She could truly make a feast from the most meager of ingredients.
She loved and valued her church membership and served faithfully and well in the various church organizations. She cheerfully took employment as a cook in the Cache School District for many years in order to help finance missions for her sons.
Emilie is survived by four sons and one daughter and their spouses: Howard and Janis Thatcher, Logan, Sid and Linda Thatcher, Young Ward, Utah, Robert and Lillian Thatcher, Layton, Utah, Stephen and Mira Thatcher, Young Ward, and Aurelia and Clifford Hyer, Benson; one brother, Carl Fuhriman, Ogden, Utah; 33 grandchildren and 37 great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband; daughter, Sharon Thatcher; infant sons, Grant and Reed Thatcher; brothers, Albert and Otto Fuhriman, and sister, Mary Fuhriman Leishman; one grandson, Troy Gardner Hyer, and one granddaughter, Diana Patricia Thatcher.