With love, hope, and sadness we announce the passing of Colleen Marie Wilhelm of Payson, Utah. Colleen passed peacefully in her sleep on March 2, 2023.
Colleen was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on April 28, 1952, to Lois and Louis Bunch. She was proud of her heritage often speaking to her children and grandchildren of both her mother’s ancestors that immigrated from Sweden and crossed the plains as pioneers from Nauvoo, Illinois to the Salt Lake Valley and her father’s ancestors that immigrated from Guadalupe, Mexico to Arizona to become United States Citizens. She always embraced her diverse heritage and encouraged her family to do so as well.
The youngest of two children, her and her brother David enjoyed an early childhood full of love and adventure. Colleen’s family was often camping, fishing, and visiting many of the National Parks and Native American sites of the Western US. They were even some of the first visitors to Disneyland in the 1950s. Colleen’s family moved from Salt Lake City to Tucson, Arizona, to Lodi, California, and finally settling in Sacramento, California where she would live for the next 61 years. It was in Sacramento at the age of 15 that Colleen would lose her mother, and then her father passed just three years later. During this time of tragedy her grandmother, Ruth Johnson, and her mother’s sister, Beverly, stepped in and help her through those formative years of her life.
Shortly after her mother’s passing and while attending Foothill High School, Colleen met the Wilhelm family. It was 1968 when Colleen’s good friend Tommy Wilhelm put her on the telephone with his older brother Jimmy. Their first date was scheduled during that call, and they were eventually married on June 27, 1970. The love story of Jim and Colleen Wilhelm and the life and family they created would consume the next 55 years of Colleen’s life. Colleen was a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she worked as an insurance adjuster, and liked quilting, sewing, and leatherwork. She enjoyed spending time with Jim at the ocean in Monterey or Fort Brag, California and she LOVED ordering room service at hotels, but Colleen’s ambition in life was always to be a mother and a grandmother. She believed that being a mother was her primary purpose and she lived her life every day accordingly. She is survived by her husband Jim, their six children: James, David, Joseph, Michele, Jared, and Samuel, 21 grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, and her wonderful Aunt Bev.
We will forever celebrate Colleen’s life. She was a shining example of unconditional love and selflessness. She was often an attentive, non-judgmental ear, a warm embrace, a shoulder to cry on, a second mom to many, and a good friend to those who knew her. Her home and her heart were always open to others. The only thing in her life that would outshine the size of her heart was the strength of her Faith in her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. She left this life with an unwavering belief that her family will be reunited again someday in the Kingdom of God.
Colleen’s husband and children will lay her to rest with a graveside service on Thursday, March 9, 2023, at the Utah Veteran’s Memorial Park.
A memorial service and celebration of Colleen’s life by her family and friends will be held on April 28, 2023, at 11:00am. The service will be held at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints building at 3621 Elverta Road, Antelope, CA 95843.
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