Sherry Marlene McNamara Watkins

Sherry Marlene McNamara Watkins passed away peacefully at her beloved home on South Boulevard in Idaho Falls, Idaho, on August 11, 2026, surrounded by her family. She was 82 years old.

Sherry was born September 4, 1943, at the old LDS Hospital near the Idaho Falls Temple. It seems fitting that her life began in the shadow of a temple that would later become so central to the life she built, the family she loved, and the faith she carried with her until her final moments.

She attended Eastside and Emerson elementary schools, Central Intermediate School, and O.E. Bell Junior High School before graduating from Idaho Falls High School in 1961. Sherry embraced those years with enthusiasm and an unmistakable love for people. She was crowned Idaho Falls High School Homecoming Queen in 1960, was a member of Pep Club, and served on the school newspaper staff.

In August 1962, Sherry was crowned Miss Idaho Falls. Two weeks later, she represented her hometown at the Miss Idaho Pageant in Boise, where she was honored as Miss Congeniality. Of all the recognition she received during those years, perhaps that honor described Sherry best. She possessed a natural warmth and an ability to make people feel welcome, valued, and loved.

Sherry attended Utah State University in Logan, Utah, where she was crowned Blue Key Darling.

On August 8, 1964, Sherry married the love of her life, Dane Hansen Watkins. They were sealed for time and all eternity in the Idaho Falls Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Together they began a marriage that would span 62 years and become the foundation of the life Sherry treasured most.

Sherry and Dane raised seven children: Tory, Tracey, Dane, Damond, Taryn, David, and Tiffany.

Of all the titles and honors Sherry received during her life, none meant more to her than wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Her family eventually grew to include 28 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren. They were her greatest accomplishment, her greatest concern, and her greatest joy.

Sherry possessed a deep and abiding testimony of Jesus Christ, and service was one of the defining characteristics of her life. She served for ten years as Primary President in the Idaho Falls South Stake, a calling she particularly cherished because of her love for children. She also taught Gospel Doctrine, served as a ward Young Women president, and served as a counselor in the Relief Society presidency.

Her service extended beyond the walls of the Church and into the Idaho Falls community she loved. She served on the Board of Directors of the Idaho Falls Festival of Trees, treasured meeting each month with the Idaho Falls Book Club, and was one of the longest-serving Bonneville County Republican Party precinct captains.

One of the memorable highlights of Sherry's life was portraying Aurelia Spencer Rogers during Pioneer Days celebrations. Rogers organized the first Primary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Farmington, Utah, in 1878. It was a fitting role for Sherry. Like Rogers, she possessed a particular devotion to children, faith, service, and the responsibility one generation has to strengthen the next.

Sherry also loved the simple beauty of home.

She loved working in her yard. She tended her flowers and carefully made sure her beloved rose bushes had enough water. Her home on South Boulevard became a gathering place for generations of her family - the setting for ordinary days, holidays, celebrations, difficult conversations, laughter, grandchildren coming through the door, and countless memories that became more precious with the passing of time.

Her connection to the generations that preceded her was also important to Sherry.

She descended from faithful Latter-day Saint pioneers, including ancestors who were among the last Saints forced from Nauvoo, Illinois, in September 1846, following the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith. They endured persecution, displacement, uncertainty, and the long journey west with a conviction that God had not abandoned them.

That pioneer faith became Sherry's faith.

She believed that God keeps His promises. She believed in Jesus Christ and His Resurrection. And she believed that the relationships formed within a family can endure beyond mortality.

That belief was not simply part of Sherry's heritage. It was part of how she lived.

Sherry is survived by her beloved husband of 62 years, Dane Hansen Watkins; and their seven children: Tory Hebdon (Joel), Tracey Clark (Timothy), Dane Watkins Jr. (Angela), Damond Watkins (Jinger), Taryn Lichfield (Michael), David Watkins (Emily), and Tiffany Sandy (Clinton). She is also survived by her sister, Jan Holtom (Steve), and by the generations who brought such extraordinary meaning to her life: 28 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.

Sherry was preceded in death by her parents, Gordon Thomas McNamara and Eva Bailey McNamara; and by her beloved sister, Linda Packer, and Linda's husband, Don Packer.

An Intermezzo

There was one final and unexpected grace in Sherry's life.

During her final hours at home, surrounded by those who loved her, music was quietly playing in the background. Among that music was the Intermezzo from Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana.

An intermezzo is, quite literally, music that comes between.

It is not the beginning of the story, and it is not necessarily its end. It is a passage between movements - a moment when the action becomes quiet and the music is allowed to speak.

There is something profoundly fitting about that music accompanying the final moments of Sherry's mortality.

Her body had grown tired. One by one, the functions that had sustained her life began to quiet. And remarkably, her heart - the heart that had carried her through more than eight decades, through 62 years of marriage, seven children, 28 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren, service, friendship, joy, disappointment, laughter, sorrow, and love - continued beating until the very end.

Her heart was the last to stop.

For a family that watched and loved her through those final moments, that seems an appropriate final testament to the woman Sherry was.

She had spent a lifetime giving her heart away.

To Dane. To her children. To her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. To her Church. To her community. And to her Savior.

And when that faithful heart finally became still, we do not believe Sherry's story ended.

For those who loved her, August 11 brought the profound sorrow of saying goodbye. But Sherry's family does not mourn without hope.

She had a strong testimony of Heavenly Father's plan of salvation. She believed mortality is only one part of our eternal existence. She believed that because Jesus Christ overcame death, we too will live again. And she believed that death may separate a family for a season, but not forever.

There is therefore peace amid our sorrow as we contemplate the reunion that awaited her - with her mother, Eva; her father, Gordon; her sister Linda and brother-in-law Don; and generations of family members who had gone before her.

The pioneer faith Sherry inherited became the faith she lived. It sustained her throughout mortality, and it is now part of the inheritance she leaves to the generations who follow.

There is something beautifully fitting about the geography of Sherry's life.

She entered mortality at the old LDS Hospital near the Idaho Falls Temple. Twenty years later, she entered that temple with Dane and made covenants intended to reach beyond mortality. More than six decades later, surrounded by the family that grew from those covenants, she peacefully completed her earthly life in the Idaho Falls community she had always called home.

Sherry knew where she came from.

She knew whom she loved.

And most importantly, she knew in whom she trusted.

Her family will miss her presence in the home on South Boulevard. We will miss her strength and devotion, her flowers and carefully tended roses, and the countless small things she did that made a house a home.

Most of all, we will miss simply knowing that Mom was there.

But perhaps that beautiful Intermezzo playing near the end gives us another way to understand what happened on August 11.

An intermezzo is not a finale.

It is the music between movements.

And through the faith Sherry spent a lifetime teaching us, we believe that is what death is: not the final movement, but a passage between mortality and eternity.

The sealing covenant Sherry and Dane made in the Idaho Falls Temple on August 8, 1964, was a promise not merely for this life, but for eternity.

And so, after a life of family, faith, service, flowers, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and love, we say goodbye to Sherry with broken hearts - but also with hope.

The faith of her pioneer ancestors carried them west.

The faith Sherry carried throughout her life now carries her home.

Her heart has stopped.

But her story has not.

Because of Jesus Christ, we believe another movement awaits.

Jesus Christ lives. Families are eternal. And this separation is only for a season.

Services will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, August 15, 2026, at the Idaho Falls 12th Ward, 1235 Juniper Drive. A visitation for family and friends will be held Friday evening from 6:30-8 p.m. at Wood Funeral Home, 273 N. Ridge Avenue in Idaho Falls, and Saturday from 10-10:45 a.m. prior at the church. Burial will be in Rose Hill Cemetery.