Shocked residents of Cedar Valley remember the Nicholas Weaver family as competent, hard-working people filled with a love of life.
On Saturday, the family — Nicholas Weaver, 28; Ruth Weaver, 30, and their daughters, Diana Jo, 8; and Audrey, 2 — drove from their home in the White Hills subdivision toward Idaho to get some fencing for their horse corrals. Close to the Idaho border on I-84, their pickup blew a tire, jumped the median and collided head-on with a semitrailer truck.
The parents and Audrey Weaver were killed, while Diana Jo was injured. She is in Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City, where she was listed Sunday evening in "improving and stable" condition.
"They were just wonderful people and a great asset that's gone," said Machelle Clegg, who works in the Cedar Valley Country Store. "Everybody's quite upset about it."
Nicholas Weaver worked with a couple of Internet service providers as a troubleshooter. One of these companies was the wireless service Cedar Valley Net, owned by his friend Dan Metcalf, a resident of Cedar Fort.
Speaking of Nicholas Weaver, Metcalf said, "He was a kind, patient, honest person. He's just an all-around wonderful person.
"There wasn't a mean bone in his body. I never saw him lose his temper. He had a sense of humor. Extremely intelligent, hard-working — just a great friend."
Weaver did all the engineering at Cedar Valley Net. He took care of the software and set up equipment in the operating center. "He was the center of that whole thing" and a truly competent person, Metcalf said.
Ruth Weaver stayed home with the children. The family loved horses, he said. They kept several horses in the Metcalfs' pasture. "Ruth would be over ever morning and afternoon, taking care of the horses," he said.
"And of course she took care of their little kids."
He remembered Audrey as a "little handful. She was really cute, always busy, always wanting to pet the animals and see the horses and all that.
"And boy, she had a temper. When she got crossways with you and didn't get what she wanted, she could scream so loud it would peel the paint off the wall."
Linda Metcalf, Dan's wife, agrees that Nicholas and Ruth Weaver were wonderful people. Speaking of Diana Jo, whose nickname is D.J., she said, "She was going to be baptized (into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) by her father on Sept. 1."
Nicholas Weaver helped her husband with just about everything, she said. Once when her husband could not be home, "he climbed up on my house and oiled my swamp cooler."
Ruth Weaver was the most wonderful mother, Linda Metcalf added. "She just loved the kids, and they loved the horses here."
She added, "I'm still speechless with what happened. I can't believe this happened."
The Metcalfs noted that the funeral is planned for noon on Friday in the Cedar Fort LDS Chapel.
Contributing: Associated Press
E-mail: bau@desnews.com