3/9/31 ~ 2/2/03
Shirley Alexia Bigney Gedicks of Provo, Utah, died February 2, 2003, after a battle with cancer. She was 71.
Shirley was born March 9, 1931 in Trenton, Pictou County, Nova Scotia., Canada, the third child of Alexia Odessa Duncan and Alexander Sinclair Bigney. She grew up nearby in Kirkmount, a tiny village on McLellan's Mountain outside of New Glasgow. Shirley immigrated with her family to Salt Lake City in 1947, where she attended the University of Utah for two years. Her parents moved to Malden, Massachusetts in 1948, and Shirley returned to live with them in 1949. It was in Malden that she met her husband, Frederick Henry Gedicks, Jr.; they were married in the New England LDS Mission Home in Cambridge, Massachusetts on November 17, 1951, and later sealed in the Salt Lake Temple on September 4, 1952.
Shirley was an active and faithful member of the LDS Church all of her life, despite the fact that the church was not organized in the New Glasgow area; occasional visits from the missionaries were her only contact with the church while she was growing up. She served in various positions in the church throughout her life, including Primary teacher, Relief Society teacher, Sunday School teacher, Young Women's counselor, and visiting teacher. Although she never served a mission, she did convert her husband.
Shirley had a beautiful soprano voice and loved to sing. She was a member of the Presbyterian church choir in New Glasgow as a teenager, and sang in the choir of every LDS ward in which she lived until she became ill. She participated in innumerable music and quartet festivals, and was a member of regional LDS choirs in New York and Los Angeles. She made certain that all her children took music lessons and learned to sing.
Shirley loved animals, and could not imagine life without a pet. She had dogs (and an occasional cat) all of her life, and spoiled them terribly. The family occasionally teased Shirley that she loved her dogs more than she loved her children, which she of course denied, though she sometimes pointed out that her dogs were more obedient.
Shirley is survived by her husband; her brothers, Alexander Woodman Bigney (Rose Stacishin) and Hugh Clinton Bigney (Carol Kee); and her younger sister, Twilah Dawn Ritchie; her children, Frederick Mark Gedicks (Nicea Stimpson), Robin Gedicks Shumway, Nancy Boynton (Mark), and Laurie Bevan (Myrl); eighteen grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Her older sister, Donalda Anna Mae Bigney, and her second grandchild, Alexander Philip Gedicks, preceded her in death.
Funeral services will be held at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, February 6, 2003, at the Edgmont Ninth Ward chapel at 4300 North Canyon Road, in Provo. Those who wish to pay their respects to the family may do so at the same location from 10:00 to 11:15 a.m. prior to the service. Burial will be in the Orem City Cemetery. The family requests that donations in lieu of flowers be made to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, 4578 South Highland Drive, Suite 300, Salt Lake City, UT 84117.