Zella Irene Smith Willoughby
Zella Irene Smith Willoughby
1935 ~ 2025
Zella Irene Smith was born to Ruth Klein and Franklin Ray Smith on April 30, 1935 in Denver, Colorado, on the same day, in the same hospital that her maternal grandmother passed away; a memory that was significant to Ruth, and by extension, Zella.
Although physically diminutive, Zella was an active and adventurous youth. In first grade the school staff postulated she was malnourished and recommended she only attend a half day of school. However, when they discovered that rather than returning home to rest, she instead remained at school enjoying herself at the playground, they insisted she again attend class the full day and the doctor also recommended she be given beer to drink to fatten her up!
Zella greatly enjoyed skating; every Saturday night she would ride a bus alone from her home in Downtown Denver to the suburb of Englewood to go to a roller rink, and in the winter, she would ice skate on Sloan’s Lake. She had grand ambitions of joining the Ice Capades, but after breaking her arm, it was determined skating was a “dangerous sport” and she was then somewhat limited in pursuing a profession in the field (not to mention, she was also about a foot too short!). However, skating remained a life-long passion; she was enthralled by watching Olympic skaters, and given the chance, her ideal career would have been to design and sew skating costumes.
Music was another consistent passion. Zella took piano and singing lessons from college students who lived in her parent’s boarding house. Again, despite her small frame, her voice was full and could carry throughout a large auditorium. She pursued her gifts as a vocal major when she attended the University of Colorado.
The boarding house played other significant roles in her life. Because each room of the converted mansion was occupied by paying tenants, Zella, her grandfather Louis, and younger brother, Jerry were relegated to share a glassed-in porch as their bedroom. Her first job was helping her mother wash and iron the tenant’s bedding with a large mangle. Throughout her life, Zella remained devoted to ironing, ensuring that even pillow cases, hankies, and jeans were wrinkle-free but properly creased. Finally, when she was about 15 years old, she had her first kiss on the front steps of the house. She was saddened when, in the 1980s, she learned that the mansion had been razed.
In 1950, she moved with her family to Rocky Ford, Colorado. Although disappointed to leave the bustling city for a small farming town, she met Velma Rackler (Guest), who became a life-long friend. In fact, when Velma’s family moved during their senior year of High School, Zella suggested she live with the Smiths until the end of the school year. This began a long tradition of opening her home to family, friends, exchange students, and occasionally even strangers.
On the first day of college at the University of Colorado in 1953, while sitting on the steps of the Student Union, a handsome young man approached and said: “Hi, I’m Oat.” She didn’t quite understand what that meant at the time, but, in her own words she said, “The rest was history.” Zella and Otis Huntington Willoughby were married on June 6, 1954, and remained happily together for 68 years, until her beloved Oat passed away in 2022.
Although it seems antiquated today, Zella was proud to have earned her “Mrs. Degree.” That is, she discontinued her college studies in order to work and support Otis in his. She was employed for a time as a soda jerk in a drug store but primarily worked in various positions as a typist and secretary, including at a stock brokerage and for the superintendent of schools in Boulder. Later in life she also worked for Wells Fargo Bank, Mapleton Hospital, and as a supervisor for the Youth for Understanding student exchange program.
Through friends, Otis had long been acquainted with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, after a chance encounter with a congregational member, the Willoughby family began taking missionary lessons and joined the Church in 1970. They were later sealed together eternally as a family in the Salt Lake City Temple in June of 1973. Zella was pleased that her slim figure allowed her to wear her original wedding dress for a second time. That experience also led her to one of her favorite stories to recount: “After the sealing in the temple, we went camping as we traveled back to Boulder. Oat took the wedding dress out of the camper while he put the pop-up style camper down but failed to put it back in before we left. Many years later when we lived in Cedaredge, I was telling this story to a friend of mine. She told me the story of her brother who had found a wedding dress at a camp ground in Utah in 1973. He put a notice in the local newspapers and after receiving no response he donated the dress to Deseret Industries.”
This was one of many adventures the family made in that pop-up trailer; never ones to waste funds on plane tickets and hotels, the Willoughby’s traveled throughout the Western United States and Mexico to fish, hike, and explore geological and historical sites. On one occasion, however, in the midst of a blizzard in Texas with the snow piercing through the canvas walls of the trailer, Zella proclaimed that Otis could remain where he was, but for once, she was going to a hotel!
Together the couple also traveled to various US States, Australia and New Zealand. Additionally, Zella traveled alone, or with other family members to the East Coast to see the autumn colors, Germany, Japan and Korea. Besides residing the majority of their lives in Boulder, Zella and Otis lived in Castle Valley, Utah, Cedaredge, Colorado, and finally in a retirement home in Lehi, Utah.
Zella was meticulous and precise in all that she did. She was a talented seamstress, clothing her children, and even designing her own outfits. She also had a generous heart and her simple acts of kindness have blessed generations; she opened her home to those in need, cooked delicious and healthy meals enabling the family to gather together every evening, made Valentine sugar cookies with the names of her children’s classmates beautifully scripted in icing, sewed costumes for choir concerts, and most of all was “always there” for her family and friends to listen, empathize, and comfort.
Zella was preceded in death by her husband Oat and son, Otis Huntington Willoughby III. She is survived by daughters Laurel Oaks (Bart), Heather, and Hilary Walton Borison (Adam) and daughter-in-law, Aniva, as well as her brother Jerry Smith (Karen) and in-laws Richard Willoughby (Sandy) and Margaret Ann Willoughby Harbin. She has seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, all of whom she loved dearly.
Zella peacefully passed away on January 11, 2025 in Lehi, Utah.
Funeral services for Zella will be held on Friday, January 24, 2025 at 10:00 am in the Boulder Ward Chapel, located at 4655 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, Colorado 80305. Family and friends are invited to attend a gathering on Friday morning from 9:00 to 10:45 am prior to services at the Boulder Ward Chapel. Interment will follow services at the Green Mountain Memorial Park.