01/22/2026
Peggy Lauree DeValcour Carey
Peggy Lauree DeValcour Carey passed away peacefully at home in Murray, UT, on January 19, 2026. She was 96 years young. One of Peggy’s greatest life aspirations was to write her life history. This obituary is written largely in Peggy’s own words.
Peggy was born on October 2, 1929, in Pocatello, Idaho, to Henry DeValcour & Ruby Hatch DeValcour. Peggy spent her childhood days on her grandparents’ farm in Crystal in the Arbon Valley – endless adventures awaited including “riding out to her grandparent’s farm in the snow in a sleigh pulled by a team of horses, imagining she was a pioneer in her own dug out playhouse in the ground, vaccinating a herd of 200 Hereford cows with her grandfather, learning how to care for and ride horses – Sharkey was her first, and inviting friends out to the farm for sleepovers in the summer.” As a teenager, she was a baton twirler for the Franklin Junior High School marching band. Along with three other girls, she learned how to “do a figure 8, roll it over her hand, behind her back, under her leg, throw it up and hopefully catch it.” She attended Pocatello High School, and wanting to get involved in extracurricular activities, she and four of her friends volunteered to play bass fiddle in the orchestra. “We all raised our hands and volunteered. It was the best thing I ever did.” Peggy graduated from high school in 1948, and at her parents’ encouragement, she enrolled in pharmacy school at Idaho State University. As only 1 of 5 women in the first-year class, she was on the cutting edge of women in higher education at that time. She met her future husband, Jack Carey, in a botany lab. They drove together on a class field trip to find lichen and quickly became study partners. The rest is history – they were married in the summer of 1949.
Peggy was a strong, independent woman who was intimately involved in Jack’s drug store in Idaho Falls, while still rearing their 5 children and managing the affairs at home. She operated the lunch counter at PayN’Save Drug, affectionately called The Nibble Nitch. “I made chili in the winter and during the summer time, I made taco salad. We had 8 different kinds of hot dogs.” Peggy also “managed/balanced the accounts for the drug store, attended the cosmetic shows to learn the latest in makeup for the drugstore displays and learned how to fit to surgical appliances like back and knee braces for customers who needed them.” Peggy was a self-described “strict parent” who “towed the line at home” – but she still had fun; when she served as the Cub Scout leader for her two sons, Steve and Dale, a scout in the troop found a snake and even though “I hated snakes, the kids loved that snake so much, it was like they had found a jewel…I kept it in a cage in our backyard until the local pack meeting. Our troop was the hit of the pack meeting because of that blasted water snake.”
Jack and Peggy divorced in 1974, and Peggy saw that the future was in computers. She used her typing skills and got a job at Falls Insurance; “the money wasn’t the best, but the atmosphere was worth what I missed in the money – they were the kindest people you’d ever want to work for.” As a single parent, she fiercely raised her youngest daughter, Michelle, while supporting her children as they attended nursing school (Linda), served LDS missions in Brazil (Steve) and Japan (Dale), and attended BYU (Doreen). All the stress of being a single parent took a toll, and Peggy suffered a major heart attack in the fall of 1989. She underwent heart surgery in Idaho Falls, but the surgery was complicated and she developed ARDS. Her “strong will to live, faith, and visits from friends/family, got her through 40 days on a ventilator, a tracheostomy and 3 months in the hospital.”
After a short courtship, Peggy remarried Jack in 1995. They spent 12 years together in Springville, UT, and Murray, UT, before Jack passed away in 2007. Peggy and Jack loved to entertain and hosted annual family Christmas parties complete with white elephant gift exchanges, Thanksgiving feasts with all the fixings, and summer barbeques on the deck. They were a part of a dinner group, and spent an evening every month at different couples’ houses in the dinner group. Peggy was known for her cooking – biscuits, oven-baked barbeque chicken, mashed potatoes, “everything cookies,” and her famous spaghetti. Many of her grandchildren recall being invited to “lick the spoon” when she made homemade whipping cream. Peggy always remained active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and she held many callings, including serving as a temple worker in the Salt Lake City Temple. Peggy was a faithful member of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers and continued to regularly attend her “DUP” meetings up until the last week of her life. She was passionate about genealogy, and she expanded the knowledge of her family heritage greatly through her meticulous care and work; one of her greatest triumphs was reuniting her father with his sister after decades of separation in an orphanage in Chicago.
Peggy loved the outdoors, and she and Jack loved to play golf and fish together. She was introduced to Beula Lake in Yellowstone National Park on her honeymoon in 1949, and she continued to visit the area until she was into her late 70s. Everyone who has visited Beula Lake knows about “Grandma’s Hole – the boggy floor in the inlet to the lake where Peggy fell in up to her waist on her last trip to the shores of Beula.”
Peggy was preceded in death by her husband, Jack Carey, her parents Henry & Ruby DeValcour, her daughters, Doreen Carey & Cathy Thompson Carey, and her great grandson Tristan Woodman. She is survived by her children: Linda Woodman (Bryan), Steve Carey (Cathy), Dale Carey, and Michelle Wood (Doug). She is survived by her grandchildren: Heather Woodman McElfresh (Lindsay), Danielle Rebekah Woodman, Landrie DeVal Woodman Miller, Cody Mitchell Woodman (Kim), Adrienne Patterson (Brandon), Andrew Carey (Jessica), Stephanie Namiranian (Farzad), Christopher Carey (Nicole) and great grandchildren: Chase, Aspen, Megan, Hunter, Eva, Layla, Bernadette “Bernie,” Henry, Wesley, Cyrus, and Parisa.
A viewing will be held Thursday, January 22, 2026, 6-7:30 PM, at Memorial Murray Mortuary, and the funeral will be Friday, January 23, 2026, at 2 PM, at Memorial Murray Mortuary. A viewing will also be held one hour prior to the funeral.
Address for Memorial Murray Mortuary: 5850 South 900 East, Murray, UT 84121
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