Garth Oleen Talbot December 13, 1939 - August 31, 2026

Garth Oleen Talbot, our beloved husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather, brother and friend, was just a few months shy of completing his 87th trip around the sun and passed away at home with his family on August 31, 2026. As much as he did NOT want to leave Mom, he was anxious for reunions with loved ones who had already passed through the veil.

Garth was born on December 13, 1939, in a tiny basement house in Lewiston, Utah to Oleen and Helen Spackman Talbot. At that time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the president, Germany had invaded Poland and World War II had begun not long before. The average hourly wage was around 65¢ per hour. Garth joined his older brother, Dennis, who loved him and did his best to watch over and protect him throughout their lives. They were always close.

Garth was born on the birthday of one uncle and named after another uncle. To pay the doctor for his birth, a third uncle sold a cow. He was born at the end of the Great Depression and worked very hard for everything he had. Garth learned to work at a young age and was a hard worker all his life. Even the pennies he earned herding cows to pasture helped pay for his clothes as a child. He would earn 20¢ a day taking them to pasture in the morning and herding them back in the evening, accompanied by his faithful cocker spaniel, Ginger, who has now come running to meet him at the Rainbow Bridge.

Garth was a beautiful baby and his father nicknamed him “Dutch” because he had a hard time speaking clearly as a small child. His earliest memory was of splitting his chin open when he was two years old, and a tradition of splitting chins open has been carried on from father to son ever since. His parents divorced when he was two years old. His father had contracted polio, and doctors didn’t know if he would ever walk again. The boys were left in the care of their maternal grandparents while their mother found work in Salt Lake City. She visited occasionally but never came back for them. Eventually their father took them to Bear Lake where they lived with their paternal grandmother in Montpelier, Idaho while he rehabilitated from polio and regained the ability to walk. Dad’s grandmother, Martha Corilla Talbot, was the most cherished figure of his childhood. She would rock him in her rocking chair by the stove, and she is the only person he remembers receiving that close affection from as a little boy. When his father remarried, the boys went with him to Bloomington, Idaho. Separation from his grandmother was a great loss.

When Garth was a sophomore, the family moved to Fruitland, Idaho. During much of his remaining high school education he lived with his Uncle Sylvan and Aunt Romania Talbot, working on their dairy farm and living in their bunkhouse across the street from his dad and stepmom. He worked for his room and board, clothes, and a little money for his extracurricular school activities, like football and student government, and for a little bit of pocket money.

After Garth graduated from high school, he moved to Bountiful to live with his mother and become reacquainted with her. During that time, he worked for Sperry Rand in the engineer’s office tracking availability of parts for building the MGM-29 Sergeant missiles. His mother was just beginning to become active in church again and Garth attended with her before deciding to go on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He was called to serve in the Eastern Atlantic States Mission, which covered the states of Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware and parts of New Jersey, Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohio. His mission was a formative experience for him and his testimony and faith were solidified.

Upon returning from his mission, he injured his knee at work and went to the doctor where he met Donna Nelson who was working as the doctor’s assistant. On their first date, Donna was teasing him about being one of those return missionaries whose main focus was to be married in a year. He asked her if she thought she’d be ready by then. That shut her up. They ended up dating for a year and were married in the Salt Lake Temple on September 18, 1964. At that time, he had also enrolled at the University of Utah and tuition was $120 per quarter and rent was only $65 a month!

Both Garth and Donna worked to support Garth through college and, in 1969, he graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering. Their first child, Lisa, was born in 1968, just before he finished school. In 1970, their son Jay was born followed by another daughter, Sonia, in 1972. Garth’s first job as an engineer was for Utah Power and Light where he worked on projects for the power grid from the western slope of Colorado into northern Utah and southern Idaho. He worked there for five years and, in early 1974, Garth accepted a position with RCA in Anchorage, Alaska, working with the statewide communications systems and installing satellite dishes in rural villages and towns all across the state of Alaska. He traveled and worked everywhere from Pt. Barrow to Dutch Harbor and from Kotzebue to Cordova. He often traveled on small planes when going to those outlying areas and, once, coming home from Dillingham, the wings of the airplane iced up and they nearly went down. He called his dad afterwards and told him what had happened but his wife didn’t know anything about it for two years. Garth was also able to experience many aspects of life in native villages, including a whale hunt.

After five or six years, Garth changed from working on the communication systems to working for different oil companies, Sohio BP, Alyeska Pipeline and various companies that contracted with them. He worked on the North Slope in the oilfields at Prudhoe Bay, at various points along the pipeline itself and for several years in Valdez, Alaska at the oil terminal at the end of the pipeline. Dad engineered and oversaw many construction projects and was well liked among his coworkers and crews. Once, one of his bosses asked Garth if he wondered why he had hired him as the job was somewhat different from what he normally did. Garth said that, yes, he had wondered about that. This man, who had apparently watched Garth closely when he was working out of town and away from home, told him that he hired him because he had a good reputation among the people he worked with and also because he had seen that Garth never cheated on his wife. He told him that he knew that any man who would cheat on his wife would cheat on him as an employer. He knew Dad was trustworthy and reliable.

After Garth retired, he and Donna moved to Charity, Missouri and bought a bird farm. They raised game birds (chukars) for several years, selling them to hunting clubs in other parts of Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, and Colorado. While in Missouri, they worked hard collecting eggs, raising the birds, transporting them to the hunting clubs, and maintaining the farm, barns, and house. They also enjoyed going to Branson, discovering Amish country stores, and seeing the deer, wild turkeys, and lots of other wildlife on their farm.

Finally, after many years of being far from their family, Garth and Donna sold the farm in Missouri and relocated to Santaquin, Utah. Together, they served a mission with the Church Employment Services in Springville, Utah, which they enjoyed and were able to help and meet many people. There were plans to do lots of things together such as sewing, quilting (yes, Dad even helped his wife and daughter with those things), gardening, home projects, fishing, traveling and more. There were a few years when we were able to do some of those things, but Garth’s kidneys and health began to fail. For the last five years, he had been on dialysis and dealt with mild Parkinson’s. We are grateful that his life was prolonged and that we could have him with us as long as we did. He always liked to ride along if we had to go places or go out for a drink, treat, or hamburger. He was not able to do many of the things we planned or that he liked to do. However, up until about a year ago, he still made bread, on occasion, and would have us take it to his neighbors and his ministering families. He was a great believer in getting to know his neighbors and making friends by bringing them warm loaves of homemade, whole-wheat bread.

Garth was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and served faithfully in many callings, including as a stake missionary, Sunday School teacher, home teacher, and counselor in the bishopric, among others. He was an example of faithful service in his church duties. Garth had many interests and hobbies including studying the scriptures, genealogy and family history work (he collected dead relatives like a champ), fishing, cooking, canning, baking bread, photography, gardening, sports like basketball and football (especially BYU), military history, building and fixing things and helping his neighbors and others. As a teenager and younger man Garth did a lot of hunting and enjoyed guns and bow hunting. But the older he got, the more softhearted he became and couldn’t bring himself to shoot anything unless it was with a camera. He still owned guns and was a good shot, but hunting fell by the wayside. He loved to be working in the garden or yard or in the flower beds. If there was a need somewhere, you could count on Dad to show up with a meal, a chainsaw or whatever tools or assistance that was needed. He liked to volunteer to clean the church, the temple, fill a shift at the cannery or lend a hand with any service project. When the EF5 tornado hit Joplin, Missouri, Garth was there, as one of many church volunteers, to do whatever he could. He always wanted to help his kids and grandkids with various fixit, DIY and woodworking projects, sharing his labor, knowledge, and experience freely. Like the engineer he was, he “engineered the heck” out of any project he undertook and planned things out thoroughly.

Garth was an amazing husband, father, and grandfather, also. He never shied away from taking care of and being with his children, helping Donna however he could, doing whatever housework that needed doing, cooking meals, helping kids with homework, and attending their important events. He adored being a grandpa, playing games, rough housing and hearing about the things they were involved in. He was proud of all their accomplishments: graduations, schooling, careers, missions, marriages, growing and conquering challenges and the times they had to face life with strength and resilience. He loved visiting with them, spending time and giving advice whenever he could. He wished he had been able to do it more often and that he had lived closer to all his grandkids. Within the last few years, he eagerly welcomed the spouses of two of his grandchildren into the family and was able to meet and hold his first great-grandchild in May. He was lucky enough to have several visits with him to see him grow and develop during his first year. He enjoyed that immensely, even when all he could do was watch him play.

Garth is survived by his wife Donna, their three children, Lisa Talbot of Santaquin, Utah, Jay (Janine) Talbot also of Santaquin, Sonia (Kevin) Traw of Mesa, Arizona, their six grandchildren, William Edwards, Victoria (Jared) Thorn, Garth Z. (Chandrelyn) Talbot, Thobeka Talbot, Amelia Talbot, Gretl Talbot and one great-grandchild, Sullivan Thorn. He is also survived by his brother Dennis (Ellen) Talbot and brother Steven (Dikki) Spendlove. He was preceded in death by his parents Oleen Talbot and Helen Spendlove, his stepparents Ormi Talbot and Floyd Spendlove, his sister Gayle (Mark) Berrett, his sister Susan (Wallace) Dean and his stepbrothers, VeNile and Lynn Bee.

Our family would like to thank the angels, past and present, at the University of Utah/Sanderling Dialysis Center, the staff of Enhabit and Symbii Home Health and Hospices and Dr. Brian Clements for their kind and attentive care of Garth. Also, we owe a debt of gratitude to special friends Sue Cockayne, Lee and Lee Ann Pyper, Katie Dahl, Howard Houston and family, Liz Banner, Lynn Rogers, Dante and Fernanda Morales and many others in our ward and neighborhood family for their calls, service, check-ins, rides and meals. Thank you to Mom and Dad’s friends in distant places, for your calls, letters, and conversations. Your thoughtfulness made things brighter.

We would be honored for those who knew Garth to share their memories on his memorial page. His life was a tapestry of both beautiful and difficult moments, each thread a testament to his love for his family, his faith, and life in general. We would love to hear from you.

A graveside service will be held on Saturday, September 5, 2026, at Santaquin City Cemetery located at 100 East 300 South in Santaquin, Utah. Visitation will be prior from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at Walker Funeral Home, 587 South 100 West, Payson, Utah. There will also be visitation on Friday, September 4, 2026, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the funeral home. Interment will be in Santaquin City Cemetery, 100 East 300 South, Santaquin, Utah.