Obituary of Dana Lee Hatch

     Please click the link below to view the webcast services:

https://client.tribucast.com/tcid/4949717749

     Dana Lee Hatch, wife of Hal Hatch and mother to five children, passed away peacefully on February 15, 2024.

     Dana Lee was born to Clarence and Leah Savage on January 15, 1930 in the stone pioneer home built by her maternal great grandfather, in Annabella, Utah.

    She was born in a time of great turmoil in the world. Herbert Hoover was the President of the United States. The great depression began in 1929, the stock exchange lost 50% of its value, businesses were failing and unemployment was rising dramatically. One in every four workers was unemployed.

     Dana Lee’s father Clarence was tall, strong and vigorous. The Savage family was greatly blessed because of this and Clarence was never unemployed. He was a skilled and highly sought after sheep shearer and was known to shear a hundred sheep a day without a knick.

     Her childhood was spent living near her grandparents and these industrious, hard working and faithful ancestors influenced her life. She had a strong desire to follow their example and she developed a testimony of Jesus Christ early in her life.

     Gone with the Wind was released in 1939 and it was about this time that a stranger who was on a hunting trip showed up in Annabella and walked into the Savages barn-yard while Clarence was doing chores. While this tall, dark and handsome man visited with Clarence, he noticed a young girl watching him nearby. He talked with her and asked her if he could take her picture. His name was Clark Gable. She had just met the real Rhett Butler. This was a story Dana Lee loved to share.

     She attended elementary school in Annabella where she was a fast runner and could beat any challengers including the boys in a foot race. She was also skilled at marbles, jacks, jumprope and other childhood games of that era. Her athletic abilities carried on throughout her life. In her 70’s and late 80’s her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren witnessed her riding bikes, jumping rope, riding scooters, and playing kickball in the yard.

     She attended junior high and high school in the neighboring town of Monroe. Dana Lee was very pretty and as she grew into her teenage years the boys she could out run in elementary school were still chasing her. She was having none of it and claimed that she
would never marry. She often disappeared when boys arrived at her home for a visit. Never the less, she was voted in as the Harvest Ball Queen her senior year at South Sevier High School.

     After graduation in 1948, she took a summer job in Zion National Park. When September arrived she left Zion and headed to Snow College in Ephraim, Utah. She was the first person in her family to attend college. And as in a true fairy tale, on her very first day at Snow, she encountered a rowdy group of football players from Idaho. Dana Lee had never seen a football game in her life, let alone a football player. In that group was a star athlete from Bancroft, Idaho. Hal Hatch was never one to shy away from a challenge and he somehow convinced her to agree to a date. She anxiously waited for him and thought she had been stood up until he finally arrived a couple of hours late after being held in a long football practice. He begged for forgiveness and from that moment in September of 1948 and until his death on August 8, 2022 they were never far from one another’s side.

     They were married in the Manti Temple on May 26, 1949 and had been married 73 years at the time of his death on August 8, 2022.
     The young couple began married life in Logan, Utah where Hal was attending Utah State on a football scholarship. They lived in a quonset hut as many young couples did. Their first child, LeeAnna, was born in the fall of 1950 and Hal graduated with an Education degree in 1951.

     His teaching and coaching career began in St. Anthony and Downey, Idaho and continued on after moving to Meridian in 1953, when Hal and Dana Lee moved to an 80 acre farm on Linder Road a half mile south of Amity Road. For the next 15 years, they made that farm their home. With Dana Lee’s hard work and support Hal milked cows morning and night, taught school, coached football and basketball at Meridian, farmed 80 acres, drove a school bus, refereed basketball and taught drivers training. And if that wasn’t enough, they added three more children to the family— Kim, Hollie, and Jana. They were faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and during those years were members of the Meridian Second Ward. Dana Lee always had a church calling, and spent most of her life serving in the primary organization and supporting Hal in his many church callings including that of Bishop.

     There was always work to do, but somehow Hal made work seem like fun and that must have been the secret to their success. Their friendships with church members and associations with many outstanding men and women in the community made Meridian an unbeatable place to be raised and grow up.

     In the summer of 1968, the farm was sold and the family moved to a rental home in Meridian while Hal continued teaching and coaching and started building their home on Ten Mile Road. They moved into that white brick home in the summer of 1969. At that time the front yard seemed far enough back from the little gravel road called Ten Mile when only a handful of cars
passed by each day.

     In the fall of 1970 Dana Lee started working as a school bus driver for the Meridian School District. She drove bus for 24 years as she continued to raise her family, adding one more daughter, Jill in 1974.

     When Hal retired as vice principal of Meridian High School in 1987, Hal and Dana Lee realized that since they were both going to live to be 100— (and they truly believed that)— they may need to continue working. Hal started Hatch’s Drivers Training in 1990 and Dana Lee, as she had always done, went right to work. She filled the cars with gas, washed the cars, cleaned out the cars, took most of the calls and kept all the records in her famous spiral notebooks. They did this together for the next 29 years as business boomed. They officially retired in September of 2019. He was 90 years old and she was 89.

     Dana Lee loved to garden and was especially proud of her raspberries. She was an expert seamstress and made quilts for her children and grandchildren. She was an outstanding cook and is well known by many for her amazing cinnamon rolls.

     But her role as mother is her defining achievement. As children we took it for granted, but she created our world—and what a wonderful world it was and is. It is a world in which food always tasted good. In which learning and education were encouraged and supported. In which service is given to those in need. In which sacrifice of self is the definition of love. A world in which we know God lives and is mindful of us, that he hears and answers prayers and a world in which we are known to have faults and shortcomings but are loved all the same.

 Dana Lee is survived by her five children: LeeAnna Barfuss (Bob), Kim Hatch, Hollie Gibbs (Lorin), Jana Ferguson (Bret), and Jill Clarke (Eric). 24 grandchildren and 20 great grandchildren. She is also survived by her youngest sister Gloria Savage Day, her sister-in-law Eva Hatch and many nieces and nephews.

 She was preceded in death by her parents, her husband Hal, her older sister Norma Rae
Sorenson, and younger brother Clarence Kay Savage, daughter-in-law Pati Hatch and
grandson Eian Wintz.

     Her funeral service will be held on Friday, February 23 at 11:00 AM with a viewing at 10:00 AM at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints located at 5855 North Ten Mile Road, Meridian, Idaho (near the Meridian Costco).

     Internment will be at the Meridian Cemetery following the funeral service.