Printha Sorenson

Printha Johnson Sorenson, of North Logan, Utah, passed away peacefully on November 11, 2026, at the age of 87, following a relatively brief illness (though she was known to say that the ultimate cause of her demise would be succumbing to TMB: too many birthdays).

Printha was born on April 15, 1939 (dreaded tax day, she often noted), to William Derby and Ida Maria Hatch Johnson, the last of six children. She entered an exciting but tumultuous world on the cusp of change. One testament to this is the fact that while all five of her older siblings were born at home, Printha was born at the hospital, in Logan. The then decade-long Great Depression was finally winding down, and World War II in Europe was only months away. At nearly six years in length, the conflict was of sufficient duration that in the latter portion, Printha was old enough to vividly remember listening to war news on the radio. As was the case with millions of American families, this news affected hers personally, as two of her three brothers had been sent to Europe. Both were fortunate enough to return alive, but Printha had a decided distaste for any reminder (movies, books, etc.) of this and other wars for the rest of her life.

Although Printha’s father had been born in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, and her mother in Oxford, Idaho, by the early 1920s they had settled on the family dairy farm in Benson, Utah, where they would spend the rest of their lives. Beginning in 1944, Printha attended Benson Elementary, a two-room schoolhouse. While she often recalled missing several recesses due to her refusal to eat what for her was too common a lunch offering, namely franks and beans, she also reminisced more fondly about skating on the nearby frozen slough during such class breaks on many a cold winter day. When Printha was about 10 years of age, her three-year-old niece Frann Johnson (Viehweg) came from Alabama to live with the family and for all practical purposes became the youngest member of it. Printha always loved Frann dearly, treating her as a sister.

In the early 1950s, Printha attended Smithfield Junior High School, where she set a record in the 40-yard dash that was never broken, in part because the following decade it became an elementary school. (Printha also loved to run through the fields and along the backroads of Benson, and as she got older she often commented that she looked forward to having a good run in Heaven.) It was also in junior high that, at age 14, Printha first went on a date with Doug Sorenson, a curly headed boy her age from Smithfield.

The summer months during Printha’s teen years were just as busy as the school year, if not more so. She worked alongside her brothers on the family farm, pitching and tromping hay high up on the wagon (pre-bale years) before taking it to the barn to be stacked. Brothers being brothers, if they discovered a mouse in the hay they would be sure to toss it her way to keep her on her toes! And while her family had mostly transitioned to mechanized farming – trucks, tractors, and even an agricultural Caterpillar – they still used teams of horses to perform certain tasks, such as pulling hay wagons, and Printha reluctantly learned how to deal with these draft animals, including when one, instead of pulling in tandem with the other, was more interested in biting its partner’s ear. At the end of these long days, she considered mowing the lawn an enjoyable break. She tended to do this in her bare feet, once prompting the doctor administering her physical for Girls’ Camp to ask her if she could explain why the soles of her feet were stained green. Finally, if these and other chores were done and there happened to be a softball game or practice at the church, she made the nearly three-mile round trip, often on foot.

Printha attended North Cache High School, in Richmond, where she was the secretary of her senior class presidency. She was a popular student with many friends, and while she and Doug – the student body vice president his senior year – dated off and on, she also made time for other young men and young women with whom, in many cases, she formed lifelong friendships. Such friends often called her ‘Prin.’ While attempting to list all such individuals from this and other parts of her life would occupy too much space and lead to inevitable omissions, at least one person merits a special mention: Marilyn Haslam Boman, who, fittingly, was born only two days before Printha. They met in seventh grade at the age of 12, the beginning of a friendship that would span seventy years. The two were close enough that, between their graduation from high school in 1957 and Marilyn’s wedding a year and a half later, Printha spread her wings a bit and left the family farm in Benson to live for several months at the Haslam home in Smithfield, thereafter, affectionately calling Marilyn’s parents Ma and Pa Haslam. Over the years and decades, as often as their busy lives would permit, Printha and Marilyn would meet at Fredrico's Pizza near the Utah State University campus to catch up and enjoy each other’s company. Printha was truly saddened by Marilyn’s passing in July of 2021, even trying to convince her friend toward the end to take Printha with her.

The year 1957 was a significant one beyond marking Printha’s high school graduation. It was also when she started working as an optician at Logan Optical, a job she would keep for nine years, including for a time after marriage to help her sweetheart complete his bachelor’s degree (which she referred to as earning her PHT: putting hubby through). During this period she made and adjusted countless pairs of glasses, doing so with a meticulousness and professionalism that not only served customers well but made the bosses miss her when she was gone. Furthermore, though she purchased it a few years later, it was the year her cherished ‘57 Chevy was made. This car – white on the outside with a black and white interior, featuring its iconic tail fins and rolling on a set of whitewalls – might have been the beginning of Printha’s slightly lead foot, a condition she never completely overcame. And yet, despite having an active driver’s license at the time of her death and driving right up until partway through this summer, she managed never to receive a speeding ticket. She did get pulled over a few times, but her innocent-looking face must have convinced the police officers that their radar guns were broken.

Printha and Doug did not always date steadily between 1958 and 1963, in no small part because Doug was on active duty in the US Navy during these years. However, partly through the scheming of Creed and Ruby Johnson (Doug’s cousin and Printha’s friend, respectively), they finally decided to tie the knot, marrying in the Logan Utah Temple on February 14, 1964, Valentine’s Day, approximately ten years after their first date. Earlier this year they celebrated their sixty-second wedding anniversary. Their first child, a son, was born in Logan ten months after their wedding, and over the next eighteen and a half years they would welcome two daughters and four more sons. While the second and third children were born during the few years that the young family lived in Ogden, where Doug taught at Weber State University, their births took place in Logan. Only the fourth child was born in Ogden, and by the time the fifth arrived they had moved back to their beloved Cache Valley, where she lived all but seven years of her life. Before this move back north in 1973, however, Printha took advantage of living in Ogden to take several classes at Weber State, as she had done previously at Utah State. After renting a house in North Logan for three years, they bought one in the same city in 1976; this summer marked fifty continuous years at that same address. It is a house that Printha helped make into a home, one filled with love and happiness. She was always grateful that her dear sister Dessa and her husband Lyle built a house in North Logan, also in 1976, and that for the last half-century they have lived just over one mile apart.

Printha had an unshakeable testimony of her Savior Jesus Christ, and she prayed to her Heavenly Father fervently and personally. She was always very proud of the fact that all seven of her children served honorable missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and that each of them graduated not only from college, but from the Institute of Religion, as did she and Doug. The daughter of an avid scouter and Silver Beaver recipient, she likewise instilled in her sons the desire and expectation to achieve the rank of Eagle, which all five did. When she dressed for special occasions, she liked to wear her five mother’s pins that came with the awards on her lapel or collar. She was equally proud of the work her two daughters did during this same period of their lives to earn the Young Womanhood Recognition Medallion upon completion of the years-long Personal Progress program. Printha was an active and faithful member of the Church throughout her entire life. In addition to supporting Doug in his various callings, including Temple worker and a counselor in five bishoprics, three of them when the children were still young, she served in many assignments and callings of her own, among them visiting teacher and minister, stake and ward missionary, a member of stake Primary and Relief Society boards, Sunday School teacher, and Primary instructor. She held the latter position for eleven straight years, teaching a total of 102 children, often calling them weekly to invite them to her class, and in many cases staying in touch years afterward by sending them birthday cards. Approximately thirty years later, several of these children, now adults, still remember Printha and even visited her on occasion. Countless other people have also been the beneficiaries of the myriad cards and letters that Printha sent them over the years letting them know they were being thought about. There was no mistaking a Printha card, with its neat handwriting, elegant calligraphy, and a ‘Consider Yourself Hugged’ sticker.

Despite her busy life filled with many responsibilities, Printha never forgot how to let her hair down every once in a while (or how to get it wet, like the time she jumped fully clothed into the outdoor pool at the Sports Academy in North Logan following a wedding reception there, or into the rapids of Yellowstone’s Firehole River). She loved to fly fish during her single years on the Blacksmith Fork River, north of Hyrum, and in her sixties she got a chance to bait fish for peacock bass on the Panama Canal. About the same time as the Central American experience, she greatly enjoyed a snowmobile trip from West Yellowstone to Old Faithful with Doug and three of her kiddos. She would never turn down a good roller coaster, but few if any were quite able to give her the thrill she was seeking, so she took things to the next level, literally. Several times in the early 1990s, already in her fifties, she launched herself, headfirst, from a bungee tower when said attraction arrived in Cache Valley. When unexpectedly presented with the opportunity for her and Doug to ride the Goodyear Blimp over the Los Angeles coastline, she of course did not pass it up. Not nearly content with any of that, however, her crowning achievement of this nature took place when she celebrated her seventieth birthday, in 2009, by going skydiving with her youngest daughter in the skies above Ogden. She yearned to repeat this feat at age eighty, but a combination of her doctor and the Holy Ghost somehow talked her out of it, much to her chagrin. This did not stop her from continuing to savor the small pleasures in life, such as the many walks up and down ‘Challenge Hill’ on 17th North in North Logan with her Hon for several years after his retirement. Other such joys, in her own words, included: ‘the Gospel, the Law of Tithing, family, friends, BOOKS, speed, memorizing, order, running, fresh peas, crystal, camping, lace, clocks, autumn leaves, holidays, travel, roses, quiet, and Heavenly Father's handiwork,’ as well as entertaining the grandchildren with ‘tiny tea parties, sleepovers, and fish ponds.’

As can be attested by all who knew her, Printha was one of a kind, and she will be sorely missed, but we are glad that she has been freed from the pain and restrictions of her earthly shackles and find joy in our knowledge that families can be eternal.

Printha was preceded in death by her parents, William Derby and Ida Maria Hatch Johnson; three brothers: Byron Johnson, Lee Johnson, and Norval Johnson; one sister: Itha Johnson Stentzel; and a grandson: Kayden Sorenson. She is survived by her eternal companion: G. Douglas Sorenson of North Logan; a sister: Dessa (Lyle) Beck of North Logan; her children: Tad Sorenson of Logan; Doxie (Tim) Larsen of Syracuse; Tyler (Karen) Sorenson of Maputo, Mozambique; Travis Sorenson of Conway, Arkansas; Tonya Sorenson of Logan; Jared (Mariah) Sorenson of Twin Falls, Idaho; and Justin (Jenna) Sorenson of Eagle Mountain; nineteen grandchildren: Sophia, Marnae, Ann, Jameson, Bethany; Bryn, Jorn, Quin; Jacоb, Garen, Oakley, McKay, Zach, Mia, Bella; Jace, Lily, Landon, and Lainey; three great-granddaughters: Addie Jo, Audrey; and Monroe; and several dear nieces and nephews.

Funeral services will be held on Saturday, November 21, 2026, at 11 a.m. in the North Logan Green Canyon Stake Center, 1850 North 400 East, North Logan, Utah. Viewings will be held Friday from 6-8 p.m. and Saturday from 9-10:30 a.m. both at the stake center. Burial will be in the Logan City Cemetery.

We are deeply grateful to Karmon Reese and those at Terrace Grove Assisted Living for their loving care and support over the past two months. Memories and condolences may be shared with the family at webbmortuary.com