Mervin Bennett Beckstrand

Mervin Bennett Beckstrand, 88 passed away in Vernal, Utah on Sunday morning, June 2, 2024. Born at home to John Milton and Eva Lovell Beckstrand in Meadow, Utah on December 2, 1935, Mervin joined his three older brothers, Joseph, Harold and Gordon with Linford welcomed later. Mervin graduated from Millard High School in 1954 and served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the New England States Mission. He attended Brigham Young University on a track scholarship where he met Carolyn June Seiter in an Economics class. They were married in the Salt Lake Temple on May 2, 1958. Together, Mervin and Carolyn were blessed with four children.

Mervin lived a life of devotion to God and his family. He served with great love wherever he lived. He was the mayor of Meadow, a missionary with Carolyn at Cove Fort and in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a bishop in three different states, a patriarch in the Fillmore Utah Stake and the mission president of the Armenia Yerevan Mission. He loved his missionaries and the Armenian people and spoke of them often.

He loved gardening, played softball into his seventies, hated when his apricots froze, played the ukulele and the coronet, spent many happy hours with his sons outdoors, loved to celebrate finding a good bargain, and had a beautiful singing voice, particularly singing barbershop.
Mervin is survived by his eternal companion, Carolyn June Seiter, his children, Douglas Mervin (Annette Mortensen), Kenneth Dean (Charlene Day), Karin Diane (Kyle Clegg), and Karlene June (Shaun Abplanalp), 19 grandchildren, 55 great-grandchildren and his beloved brother Linford.

He is preceded in death by his brothers Joseph, Harold, and Gordon Beckstrand.

Funeral services will be held on Saturday, June 15 at 11:00 AM in the Meadow, Utah Ward Chapel. A viewing will be held at the same location that morning from 9:30-10:45 AM. Interment will be in the Meadow City Cemetery.  The funeral will be streamed and available at this link: https://youtube.com/live/y-6zRqz1lY8?feature=share.