Jeannine Gail Iverson

Jeannine Gail Pack Iverson once wrote, "Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be a mother with a cookie jar filled with cookies." She spent the rest of her life filling far more than cookie jars. She filled a home with faith, hard work, adventure, music, laughter, high expectations, and love—and a community with service, leadership, friendship and example.

She passed away peacefully on June 29, 2026, surrounded by her family at Maple Springs Skilled Nursing Facility in North Logan, Utah. She was ninety years old. Her passing came just one month after that of her husband, Johnny, who died on May 27. As one family member observed, with a nod to Johnny’s pilot profession, "The crew is together again."

It seemed fitting that Jeannine would follow Johnny so soon. As a high school senior, after one of their early dates, Jeannine wrote in the teenage vernacular of the day, "I really had it bad for him—and I still do." That remained true… for the next seventy-two years they were partners. Johnny once described their relationship: "When I was Scoutmaster, she was my assistant. When she worked in Young Women, I was her assistant." Whether serving in church callings, raising a family, chasing adventures, or facing life's trials, they were in it together. While running whitewater, Johnny had the stern of the canoe while Jeannine was at the bow. That image captured their partnership. Each trusted the other, and together they helped countless others move forward.

Jeannine was born on December 10, 1935, in Lehi, Utah, the eldest child of Paul Clarence Pack and Gail Peet Pack. She was followed by two sisters and three brothers. Her childhood was marked by frequent moves as her family lived in American Fork, Los Angeles, Manila, Midway, Heber, Tooele, Phoenix, and Lindon. Rather than remembering those years as disruptions, she remembered them as adventures.

She loved reading, dancing, music, church, camping, horses, and the outdoors. One of her favorite childhood stories involved watching a robin's nest a little too closely, only to have the young bird promptly relieve itself in her eye. She never forgot it.

While in high school she became involved in school theater. For one school play, a doctor's appointment caused her to miss tryouts. Rather than leaving her out, the adult director appointed her student director. During rehearsals she slipped backstage, and one of the actors—a senior named Johnny Iverson—caught her as she fell. With a grin he asked, "So you're falling for me, huh?" An airplane ride, dances, skiing, ice skating, a heart-shaped box of chocolates with a first kiss, picnics and lots of dates followed.

Jeannine graduated from Pleasant Grove High School in 1954. Two weeks later, on June 11, 1954, they were married in the Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As newlyweds, they lived where goals and opportunity led—Lindon, Manila, Phoenix, Denver, Lindon again, and Highland for forty years, before their last move to Mink Creek, Idaho.

Their home eventually became the gathering place for nine children, 43 grandchildren, 110 great-grandchildren, along with neighbors and friends. Hot bread, straight from the oven, torn apart and buttered by children (“Only one loaf, Mama?”) and impossible-to-replicate chocolate chip cookies were well-loved products of Jeannine’s kitchen. Scripture study, family prayers, camping trips, music, laughter, and hard work became the rhythm of family life. The cookie jar remained full, but it was only one symbol of the love that filled the home.

Because Johnny's work as an airline pilot often kept him away from home, much of the day-to-day responsibility for the family rested on Jeannine. She managed nine children, gardens, the orchard, vineyard, and raspberry patch, livestock, church responsibilities, and the logistics of a large family. 3:00 a.m. water turns, hauling hay, organizing week-long camping trips, and getting nine children ready for church were routine responsibilities that she carried with enthusiasm and without complaint. Her children remember being awakened by her singing, "Birdie with the Yellow Bill Hopped Upon My Windowsill" or "Good morning to you! Good morning to you!" And before anyone was allowed to play, a familiar question awaited: "Is your row of corn weeded?" or "Is your piano practice done?"

Jeannine believed deeply in teaching. Although she often described herself first as a mother, teaching became a thread that ran through nearly every aspect of her life. By word and example, she taught children, youth, and adults.

Looking back over decades of church service, she wrote, "To a large extent I am what I am today because of the church callings I have had." She served faithfully in Primary, Young Women, Relief Society, Sunday School, teacher development, genealogy, dance instruction, and numerous other callings. Her measure of success was people. Her journal records her explicit goal that each person within her stewardship feel accepted, valued, and loved.

Teaching extended far beyond the church building. Johnny and Jeannine shared a love for adventure and believed that some of life's greatest lessons were best learned outdoors. Among the most memorable of the numerous adventures were during the years in Highland when they led youth groups on backpacking expeditions into the Havasupai Reservation at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and organized canoe trips on Yellowstone Lake and the Snake River. To the youth who participated, these were unforgettable adventures; to Johnny and Jeannine, they were classrooms. Around campfires, on mountain trails, in canoes and on rappel, young people learned teamwork, perseverance, responsibility, testimony, and confidence. The destinations were magnificent, the challenges were demanding, but young people’s character and growth mattered far more than the scenery or adventure.

Life also brought its share of hardship.

Jeannine endured serious back problems in the early years of her marriage that left her hospitalized and, for nearly a year, sleeping in traction. During those difficult months she received an impression that remained with her: "Anyone can clean house, but only you can raise your children." That simple realization, often repeated to those she later mentored, reordered her priorities for the rest of her life.

The family also experienced financial struggles and memorable events such as “The Day the House Blew Up” and “The Day Johnny Got Sucked Out of the Airplane Window” during an explosive decompression at 23,000 feet. Through every trial, Jeannine's journals consistently returned not to the hardship itself but to the kindness of neighbors, the faithfulness of family, the blessings of the gospel, and the quiet evidence of the Lord's hand.

Just as gratitude became one of the defining characteristics of her life, so did an unending desire to improve herself. Jeannine never saw herself as having mastered discipleship. She saw herself as someone still learning. She acknowledged mistakes—sometimes reluctantly—and sought the guidance of the Holy Spirit throughout her life. She believed inspiration usually came not through dramatic manifestations but through quiet whisperings received while faithfully doing the work. Her lifelong desire to learn also led her back to school at age fifty-seven, when she enrolled in business and administrative classes at Utah Valley Community College (now UVU) and earned an associate degree.

As the years passed, grandchildren and great-grandchildren brought her immeasurable joy. Grandma's homemade bread and chocolate chip cookies became legendary. Family camping trips, stories, songs, laughter, and practical expressions of love became valued memories. Grandchildren remember Grandma's saliva-moistened thumb appearing when a dirty face needed immediate attention and no water was close. It was vintage Grandma—practical, loving, and entirely unconcerned with appearances. One grandson later described her as "inexhaustible, determinedly kind, fiercely loyal and protective of her clan," and added that her spit had somehow become a permanent part of his face.

Jeannine loved family history and spent countless hours preserving the history of those “on whose shoulders we stand.” She understood that families are strengthened not only by names and dates, but by remembering the lives that shaped them.

During the last years of her life, one could see the maturity that decades of discipleship had produced. As a young mother she often reminded her children, "Obedience is the first law of heaven." She believed it, lived it, and taught it faithfully. Over the years, however, her understanding deepened. After decades of serving, teaching, raising a family, seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and striving to follow Jesus Christ, she came to see more clearly the destination toward which obedience had always been pointing. In conversation with one of her sons in the final months of her life, she clarified that obedience is not the first law of heaven… “Love is.”

She measured her life not by recognition received or accomplishments, but by people. Johnny, her children, her grandchildren, her students, her neighbors, and her friends. She spent ninety years building people, one act of love at a time.

Jeannine is survived by her children, Steven (Jessie), Teresa (Virgil), Micheal (Susan), David (Shari), Cherie (Ted), Christine (Charles), Kurt (Margret), and Rebecca (Dane); and her siblings, Patricia, Leon (Sheila), Anita (Glade), Allen (Vilma), and Danny (Marcia). She was preceded in death by her son Gregory (Vickie).

The little girl who dreamed of becoming "a mother with a cookie jar filled with cookies" fulfilled that dream. And in the process, she filled far more than cookie jars.

She filled lives.

Funeral services will be held on Monday, July 20, 2026 at 11 am at the Preston East Stake Center, 310 N. State, Preston, Idaho. A visitation will be held prior to the service from 9:30-10:45 a.m. Interment will be in the Mink Creek Idaho Cemetery. Memories and condolences may be shared with the family at webbmortuary.com