Dean Batt Cleverly

Dean couldn't resist the call of the open road. In his final days, as he drifted in and out of a liminal sleep, he dreamed he was travelling still with the people he loved.

Dean Batt Cleverly was born July 19, 1949, in rural Ontario, Oregon, the seventh of Dorothy and Ivard's nine children. After an early childhood along the Oregon/Idaho border, his family moved to Nampa, Idaho. He went on his first family road trip at age eight to visit his brother in California; at 15, he took a cross-country train on his own to the National Scout Jamboree in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and to the 1964 New York World's Fair. He learned early that the world is a wide and wonderful place to explore.

He enjoyed school and particularly excelled in subjects like history and English. He won first place in a statewide essay contest sponsored by the University of Idaho's journalism department in his junior year at Nampa Senior High School, and served as the editor of the school newspaper and vice-president of the Honors Society as a senior. After graduating in 1967 he moved to Provo, Utah, to attend Brigham Young University.

Dean paused his studies in 1968 to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Brazil North area. The language, people, and sacred experiences of Brazil remained precious to him throughout his life. He returned to the country several times, including twice to pick up his sons who also served missions in Brazil. Dean's love of the place continues to filter through the family decades and generations later: No Cleverly birthday party is complete without singing the Happy Birthday song first in English, then in Portuguese (guests who don't know the words are encouraged to "clap in Portuguese").

Dean returned to his studies after his mission, graduating from BYU in 1973 with a bachelor's degree in English and Portuguese. While still at BYU, a friend arranged for Dean to go on a blind date with the lovely Claudia Lange; nearly a year later, thoroughly smitten, he proposed. They were married in the Provo, Utah temple on November 22, 1972, and have remained devoted companions through five decades.

Soon after graduating, Dean began what would become a nearly 40-year career with the LDS Church's Missionary Department, upholding its mandate to take the gospel "to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." He worked with General Authorities to support the calling, training, and care of missionaries and mission presidents all over the world. His talents for writing and editing were put to use in many internal and general church publications; he reviewed and edited the manual Preach My Gospel and contributed the entry on missionary work to The Encyclopedia of Mormonism, among many other things.

Dean and Claudia had eight children whom they raised in the Bountiful, Utah, home they purchased in 1977. Dean was a patient, encouraging presence in the lives of his children: He read to them, took them on regular outings, involved himself in their interests and education, and shared his own passions – for maps and road trips, language, family history, music, and faith, among others. Those road trips added up over a lifetime: Dean eventually visited all 50 US states, finally checking off Maine in 2024, and, with Claudia, six of the seven continents (only Australia remained, a trip they had been planning before the pandemic closed the door). When the next generation came along, he doted on the grandchildren in the same ways.

Dean's family and faith were his greatest joys and his proudest accomplishments; as an expression of both, he documented his family's story through the decades in regular newsletters. Each included a verbal snapshot of their lives – events that seemed ordinary in the moment but fascinating to look back on years later – as well as fatherly advice or spiritual counsel. He also spent years transcribing, editing, and publishing books of his mother's extensive diaries as well as his personal and other family histories. Dean served in many church callings throughout his life, including as bishop of the Bountiful 20th Ward from 1996 to 2001. After his retirement, he and Claudia served together as Directors of the Mormon Trail Center at Historic Winter Quarters from 2013 to 2015, again shepherding and sharing the lives of those who went before.

For most of his adult life, Dean lived with Progressive Systemic Scleroderma, a complicated autoimmune disorder that he faced with characteristic steadiness rather than complaint. He once said that the secret to a long life was to "get a chronic illness and take care of it"; his conscientious attention to his health helped him to remain active and engaged until his last few months, when the relentless progression of the disease finally overcame him. In the end, as in the beginning, Dean was ready to go. As his body failed him, his mind kept returning to the road: packing for a trip, checking a map, counting the people in the car. He died peacefully in his sleep at home, surrounded by the love of his family, on September 6, 2026.

Dean was preceded in death by his parents, Ivard R Cleverly and Dorothy Batt, and by his brothers Lyle, Gail, Jerry, Ray, and Dale, and by two beloved grandsons, Tanner Hoff and James Cleverly.

He is survived by his wife of nearly 54 years, Claudia Lange Cleverly; his siblings Gene, Kay, and Jackie Sayer; his eight children and their families: Michael (Shauna: Meghan, Caleb, Jacob, Andrew, Ethan, Marta); Rebecca Hoff (Cade: Miriam, Hyrum); Rachael Hodson (Robert: Claudia, Esther, Margaret, Eleanor); Talmage (Louise: Ben, Olivia, Marco); Anna Halverson (Pete: Miles, Kate, Hazel); Camilla Meeks (Chad: Sam Taylor, Marjorie, Lucy, Mabel); Eliza Challis (Paul: Peter, Aaron, Claire, Lilly, Evelyn, August, Ezra); and Mary Oveson (Vince: Eden) as well as a great-granddaughter (Liberty).

The family is deeply grateful for the compassionate care of Dean's hospice team, and for the outpouring of love and support from friends, neighbors, and family in his final days.

A viewing will be held on Sunday, September 13, 2026, from 7:00-9:00 p.m. at Russon Mortuary (295 North Main Street, Bountiful, Utah). A second viewing will be held the next day, Monday, September 14, 2026, from 9:45-10:45 a.m. at the 20th Ward church building (102 East 1400 South, Bountiful, Utah) followed by the funeral service at 11:00 a.m.

Services will be streamed live on the Russon Mortuary & Crematory YouTube Channel and on this obituary below.