Alice Myers

Alice Fay Brady Myers passed away peacefully at home on July 13, 2023 at age 92. She was born on 4 October 1930 in Kemmerer, WY to Feurman John Brady and Alice Verl Hansen Brady. When she was six years old, her family relocated to Las Vegas, NV, where she spent her school years. She attended Las Vegas Grammar School for grades 1-8. Upon her graduation from grammar school, she was presented the American Legion Medal for “scholarship, leadership, courage, initiative, and loyalty”. She then attended Las Vegas High School, graduating in 1948.

Throughout her youth and teenage years, she was active in music, drama, and academics, serving as Music Club President, Pep Cats Secretary, Junior Class Vice President, Prom Queen (junior year), and Homecoming Queen (senior year), and participating as a member of the Latin, Chemistry and Thespian Clubs, Honor Club (sophomore, junior, and senior years), Girls’ Reserves, and Junior Year Student Council. Additionally, she represented the City of Las Vegas at Nevada Girls’ State in Reno, and the State of Nevada at Girls’ Nation in Washington, DC. Also in her teenage years, she and her dear friends Geneva Call and LuJean Foremaster formed an Andrews Sisters-style vocal trio that performed regularly at various events in Las Vegas.

At age 17, she was sent by the City of Las Vegas to Hollywood to meet legendary actor Bob Hope and present him with a petition signed by 4000 Las Vegas schoolchildren, inviting him to be the Grand Marshal at the Las Vegas Helldorado celebration in honor of the 43rd birthday of the City of Las Vegas. In the summer of that same year, she traveled to Chicago to represent the State of Nevada at the National Railroad Centennial Fair. Upon her return, the Director of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce recruited her to chauffeur a number of notable public figures and entertainers during their visits to the city. Her chauffeuring duties often involved taking guests and their parties skeet-shooting. Word quickly went out that young Alice Brady could more than hold her own with the very best shooters in any party. On one such outing, actor Robert Stack commented that he was glad the citizens of Las Vegas were good law-abiding folks, since even their teenage girls were expert shots.

After graduating from high school, she enrolled at Brigham Young University, where she was a member of Delta Phi and active in drama, music, and academics, earning her Bachelor of Science in June 1953 in education with minors in theatre and music.

During the second term of her junior year in college, she met Merlin Gilbert Myers in a philosophy class, and said that she was immediately very impressed with his interest in a topic that she couldn’t stand and the ease with which he both enjoyed and unraveled “all that philosophical gibberish!” They were married on 29 December 1952 in the Salt Lake LDS Temple by Elder Harold B. Lee (later President of the LDS Church).

Shortly after their marriage and college graduation, Alice and Merlin moved to Cambridge, England, where Merlin enrolled in the Cambridge doctoral program in social anthropology and Alice taught third grade in England at Lakenheath American Air Base Dependents’ School, along with senior high school English at Wimpole Park Air Base.

After two years of intensive coursework at Cambridge, they moved to the Six Nations of the Grand River Iroquois Reserve in southeastern Ontario, Canada, for the fieldwork phase of Merlin’s doctoral degree. While most cultural and social anthropology fieldwork lasts 12-18 months, a bond of mutual love, respect and kinship developed quickly between Merlin and Alice and the members of the Iroquois community, and they ended up spending 7 years on the Reserve. Both Alice and Merlin were adopted into Iroquois clans and families, forming beautiful lifelong relationships. Alice, a brilliant scholar in her own right, was invaluable to Merlin’s fieldwork research and later, after his passing, helped bring his dissertation to publication.

After completing their fieldwork and doctoral requirements, they traveled and lived extensively through England and Europe before Merlin accepted a position at Brigham Young University, creating and heading up BYU’s social anthropology department until his death. During their time in Utah, Alice raised three children, taught numerous piano students, performed regularly in a vocal ensemble with her dear friends Pat Sealy, Bev Christensen and Dixie Beck. She also wrote and published a number of poems and short stories, and traveled with Merlin and their youngest child Christopher to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China, for additional anthropological research.

She was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, serving in a number of different teaching, administrative and music positions throughout her life. An avid genealogist with a keen interest in her family history, she and her cousin undertook a massive research project, resulting in a comprehensive volume of the Brady family genealogy and history, many hundreds of pages in length. With her father, she co-authored his delightful biography entitled Chronicles of A Sanpete County Carrot Eater. She was also a co-director of the Las Vegas Family History Center for several years.

In spite of her many personal talents and achievements, compassion and selflessness were always first in Alice’s life. She gave her whole self in caring for her husband during his terminal struggle with ALS, and then shortly after his passing, moved back to Las Vegas to care for her parents in their final years. She was known by all to be sweet, funny, kind, caring, and smart. Her children and grandchildren also remember her for her selflessness, good humor and loving kindness.

After her parents passed away in 2007, she returned to Utah to live with her son and daughter-in-law, and spent her remaining years reading, gardening, writing short stories, and enjoying the outdoors and the family’s cats and dogs. True to the diverse nature of her soul, her favorite books to read in her last years ranged from Darwin’s evolutionary theories, to Isaac Newton’s Principia, to the adventure tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs and the high fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkien. She remarked many times in her last years that she wished she had another lifetime so she could return to school and become an astrophysicist.

During this time, she also continued to travel, taking a memorable trip with her oldest daughter Rebekah and grandkids Brandon, Celeste, and Ben, to England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Always one for good conversation, she spent many precious hours during her last years having lengthy conversations with her daughter Ruth and granddaughters Laini and Jenni, and especially loved teaching weekly piano lessons to Laini and Jenni. She spent many hours reminiscing about happy days spent with Laini, Jenni, Jake and Alyssa. She was very close to her Iroquois sisters Ariel Harris and Ruby Johnson. Alice and Ariel spent many hours in their final years talking and laughing together. Ariel was truly her heart sister.

A lifelong sports fan, she rarely missed cheering on BYU football and basketball, the Utah Jazz and Golden State Warriors, and the Seattle Seahawks. She was an especially big fan of Draymond Green of the Warriors and NFL quarterbacks Russell Wilson and Patrick Mahomes. First on her Christmas wish lists each year were the jerseys of her favorite players, and she wore her Draymond Green #23 and Seahawks Russell Wilson jerseys proudly.

Her final years, like most of her life, were filled with laughter, music, smiles, and adventures both in the mind and the world. She loved America’s national forests and parks, and on one of her last trips to Grand Teton and Yellowstone, she saw the turnoff sign for Kemmerer, WY and remarked that after all these years and all her travels abroad, she had come full circle, back to the place of her birth.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Merlin Gilbert Myers, her parents, Feurman and Verl, her Iroquois mother Susan Johnson, and several beloved cats and dogs. She is survived by her brothers, Neil (Susan) Brady and Bill (Cindy) Brady; her children, Rebekah Myers, Ruth Myers, and Christopher (Jennifer) Myers; her grandchildren, Brandon (Anika) Bales, Celeste (Kenneth) Childs, Benjamin (Robert Cable) Dunford, Jennifer (Ace) Mack, Delaina (Soa) Vaitai, Jacob Martinez, and Alyssa (Ronald) Hougland; great grandchildren, Eleanor, Fiona, and Caitryn Bales, Skyler, Creed, and River Childs, Trey, Addilyne, and Alice Mack, and Soa II and Zachary Vaitai; and her dear Iroquois sisters Ariel Harris and Ruby Johnson.

According to her wishes, private family services will be held at Riverton City Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to your local no-kill animal shelter or your favorite national park.