Dawn Johnson Asay

February 5, 1936 - October 21, 2012

Dawn Marion Asay was a truly fascinating person. Like the mythical Scheherazade, she could captivate an audience with her stories and unique observations, often taking unabashed literary license. Any school, church or family gathering found her surrounded with avid listeners of all ages. She was Auntie Mame, the Pied Piper, to her grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and grandnieces and grandnephews, who all adored her. Never wealthy, she was generous almost to a fault. She would often give away her own well-chosen clothing, art, and jewelry as gifts to others. Though she never owned her dream house, she made the many houses and apartments where she lived striking with eclectic furnishings and accent pieces collected over years of shopping sales and "junking." Dawn's love of the English language led her to become a highly successful children's writer. Her stories and articles numbered in the dozens and were published in virtually all of the best children's magazines. In 1970s Dawn sold her first story to The Friend, an excellent magazine published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and in the following years, her work would appear many times within its pages as well as in Cricket and Ranger Rick. Her stories can be found online at the Friend website. She collected plots and characters while she worked as a public school teacher over the course of five decades, instructing children in almost all grades throughout many districts. She always taught much more than the required curriculum, sharing her hard-won wisdom about succeeding in an often-chaotic world. She was a student of education throughout her life, and if reputable research showed an instructional approach to be promising, she customized it for her students and often succeeded in changing lives for the better. For example, when she was teaching in Minneapolis/St. Paul, she implemented one of the first behavioral modification curricula in the United States and traveled to all the districts teaching them how to use it. Dawn lived her early years on a dairy farm on West Mountain near Payson, Utah, the third of seven children born to Clement and Clara Johnson. Dawn's maternal grandfather, Donald Marian McDougall, died when Clara was carrying her, thus her name. Dawn learned quickly and worked hard, helping her father on the farm and her mother with household chores and the rearing of the younger siblings. When possible, she gladly swapped out weeding and canning for cleaning the house, rearranging furniture, and decorating, completing her tasks as quickly as possible to earn her time to curl up with a book. Her love of good stories led her (under the tutelage of her older brother Howard) to begin reading the classics at an early age, and to eventually pursue a Master's degree in English Literature. Not surprisingly, Dawn was an outstanding student, and graduated early from Payson High School. She finished her bachelor's degree at BYU in the field of education at the age of 19 and became a teacher. She spent her life seeking wisdom from the best books, written by authors such as Iris Murdoch, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Thomas Hardy. Mere entertainment was seldom enough reason to read a book or even to watch a show. Always in her personal reading, she focused exclusively on brilliant, complex writing centered on world-changing ideas and events, but as a hard-working, resourceful public school teacher, she seemed to have all the patience in the world to help any child learn how to put together a good sentence or paragraph. Dawn used the examples of the masters in her teaching, but she did all she could to steer children away from merely trying to copy the style of great authors and toward finding a unique voice for their own stories. For years she feared her students would be her only children. Then, on March 31, 1967, while she and her first husband Sherman Asay were at Stanford University, they adopted a baby and named her Megan. She became the great love of Dawn's life. Then in 2001 Megan had her own first child, Abigail and later in 2004 had a son, Ethan making Dawn the proudest Grandmother around. She still bragged about her daughter but her grandchildren were so precious to Dawn, she would read to them and play with them and write them long illustrated letters that they so looked forward to receiving in the mail. In 1998 Dawn took early retirement from teaching, and she and her husband Virgil Watters became the primary caregivers of Dawn's parents. For over six years, Dawn and Virgil worked hard to provide the Johnsons a loving home, as well as the best quality of care. Clement and Clara's last years were spent in their own home where they died peacefully in their own bed, which is what most of us desire. Dawn passed away on October 21 in a care center in Logan, Utah. She had made her home for the past 10 years in Cache Valley near her daughter and grandchildren. Her final years were among her best as she was surrounded and loved by family, friends, and neighbors. Friends, too numerous to mention, served her daily as her health declined. Dear friend Janiece Sloan was with her when she died but many others, old and young, in the Hyrum 13th Ward cleaned house, prepared her meals, planted her flowers, and grieved with her when her faithful dog Butch died. When asked if she felt like a ward project, she said not long before her death, "At one point in my life I would have thought that but here it felt too much like love." She was a faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and may very well be rejoicing today with her beloved parents and her older brother Howard, who preceded her in death. She hoped also to reunite with her husband Sherman, the love of her life. Funeral services will be held at 11:00 a.m., Saturday, October 27, 2012 at the continued... 1 2 Next ...continued Berg Drawing Room Chapel, 185 East Center Street, Provo, Utah. Friends may call one hour prior to services. Interment, Provo City Cemetery. Previous 1 2