Ann Hansen

Ann Hansen passed away on May 29, 2026 in Farmington, Utah, from causes related to old age. She was ninety years old. Ann was born May 6, 1936, the first of six children born to Irvin “Bill” and Lila Peters Burgoyne. Ann was born and raised in Salt Lake City. When she was small, the family moved to a home on H Street and then to a larger home on Browning Avenue by the time Ann was a teenager. Ann attended Bryant Junior High and East High School.

Ann kept busy helping her mom with her sisters and brother. Ann took swimming, dancing, and piano lessons. She loved to play outdoors. She took first place in a city-wide hopscotch competition. When Ann was about twelve, her mother would sometimes give her money and a list of bills, and Ann would get on the bus and go from business to business paying the family’s bills. She started working before she was sixteen, doing lots of babysitting, then working at a soda fountain and later as a cashier at a department store.

Education was important to Ann’s parents. They expected all their children to graduate from college. Ann put herself through the University of Utah by working in the lodge on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon for four summers and by doing secretarial work for professors during the school year. Ann loved the Grand Canyon and considered her employment there as one of the highlights of her life.

Ann met Jim Hansen at the University of Utah. She munched carrot sticks in the row behind him in class; he turned around to see who was making the noise. For their first date, Jim took her flying since he had his pilot’s license. Ann graduated with a degree in Elementary Education in June 1958 and married Jim in the Salt Lake Temple one week later.

Though they had both grown up in Salt Lake City, Ann and Jim moved to Farmington shortly after they married. They thought they would stay for a few months but lived in Farmington for the rest of their lives. Ann taught second grade for three years, before the first of her children was born. Then she became a full-time homemaker. Ann and Jim would go on to have five children: Susan, Joe, David, Paul and Jennifer.

Between his full-time employment, church and political work, Ann said that Jim was never home when the children were young. Ann managed the house and cared for the children. When Jim ran for Congress, Ann became a political wife accompanying Jim on the campaign trail and to many events. She campaigned for him door-to-door, but Ann’s heart was always with her family. For her, family relationships were the most important. She cared for her aging parents during these years.

Ann had a gracious, leavening influence on her husband’s career. She was interested in people as individuals and did not care about their political leanings. Jim would say, “Some people think I must not be so bad because I am married to someone as nice as Ann.”

Ann was a great mother. She taught her children to save and to spend money wisely. Like her parents, she valued education and read to her children nightly. She expected all of them to graduate from college — and they did. Like her mother before her, she enrolled all her children in swimming and piano lessons. She always wanted to know what made each child “tick” and she created one-on-one moments to talk to each child. She said that her son Joe was hard to talk to, so she used his after-school snack time to chat with him.

When Ann became a grandmother, she wanted to make birthdays and holidays memorable for her grandchildren. She would take each one shopping for a gift and buy them lunch for their birthday. Her grandchildren remember how she would make Christmas Eve special with a party, manger scene reenactment, and gifts, and how she hid eggs filled with treats and cash for them to find on Easter.

Ann was adventurous. As a college student, she hiked the Grand Canyon from rim to rim several times and went on a river trip through what is now Lake Powell (including rock climbing to the top of Rainbow Bridge). In her forties, she and Jim back-packed across the Uintah mountains from the north slope to the south with four of their children.

Exercise was always important to Ann. She had a lifelong love of swimming, which she continued into her early eighties; she was still walking daily into her late eighties, eventually with a walker.

Ann was a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She undertook many callings and assignments. One of her favorite callings was working in the Bountiful temple for more than ten years. She had a great love for the Church and taught her children the Gospel.

Ann appreciated the many staunch friends she made over her life. She continued to make friends when she went to Covington Senior Living in 2021. She especially appreciated the Steed Creek Branch of the LDS church.

Ann has been a great example of “enduring to the end”. She faced setbacks with grace, faith, and a positive attitude. One of her Relief Society presidents said of her, “always gratitude, always a ready smile”. The family would like to thank her friends from Farmington Second Ward for standing by her and the staff of Covington Senior Living for helping ease her last years. Earlier this year, she said that “the CNA’s are like my sisters”.

Ann is survived by her five children: Susan (Mark) Callister, Joe (Amy) Hansen, Dave (Lorraine) Hansen, Paul (Kristin) Hansen, Jennifer (Greg Drew) Hansen, her fourteen grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. She is also survived by four of her five siblings: Julie (Robb) Russon, Sandra (Chris) Ricketts, Marcia (Bill) Bailey and Stephen (Gayle) Burgoyne. She is preceded in death by her sister, Carol, and her husband, James V. Hansen. 

Visitation will be from 6 to 8 pm on June 11 at Russon Brothers mortuary, 1941 North Main, Farmington, Utah or from 9:30-10:30 am in the LDS meeting house at 695 South 200 East, Farmington, Utah. Funeral will follow at 11 am. Interment is at the Farmington City Cemetery. Post-interment luncheon will be at the LDS meeting house at 825 South 50 East in Farmington (Note: This is a different location than the funeral).