Ruth Viola Giffen Bankhead, 83, died Thursday, June 24, 2004, at her son’s home in Wellsville, following a battle with cancer.

She was born November 17, 1920, in Sugar Creek, Missouri, a daughter of Evert Harry Giffen and Pearly Evelyn Hodges. She was the third child of ten and spent her youth growing up in Missouri. At age 11, Ruth, and two sisters, were baptized into the LDS Church. Her parents and grandparents had been converted by Mormon missionaries when she was a small child. Ruth graduated from high school in the spring of 1937 and went to work in the mission home where she met a missionary from Wellsville, Utah, Vernon Bankhead. Exactly two years later, November 15th, 1939, they were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple for time and all eternity. Ruth and Vernon lived in Salt Lake for a short time then moved to Wellsville, Utah, where they raised their family of six sons and one daughter.

Ruth held many positions in the LDS church, but especially loved her work in theYoung Women’s program and in the Primary as the Chorister. She loved to share her musical talents and spent many years doing musical programs throughout the valley. Ruth loved to garden and spent many hours working in her flowers and vegetable gardens.

Ruth worked as an aide at Wellsville Elementary where she started a tradition of making and decorating Easter eggs with the children. It was something she looked forward to each year. She also spent many years serving others in her community.

She was loved and will be missed by many people in Wellsville. She lovingly cared for her husband, Vernon, for several years preceding his death in February 2003. Later that year she began serving a mission for the LDS church in Salt Lake City where she labored until diagnosed with cancer that lead to her death.

Ruth was preceded in death by five brothers, two sisters, and a son, Richard, and her husband Vernon. She is survived by five sons: Stephen (Carolyn) Pleasant View; Marshall, Ogden; James (Jeanne), Clearfield; David (Peggy), Wellsville, and Michael (Heidi), Loveland; and one daughter, Evelyn Wright, (Lance), Ferron; 16 grandchildren and 8 great grandchildren.

Funeral services will be held Tuesday, June 29, at 11 a.m. in Wellsville 5th Ward Chapel, 660 South 100 West. Friends may call at the Allen-Hall Mortuary, 34 East Center Street, Logan, on Monday evening from 6-8 p.m. and at the Church in Wellsville on Tuesday one hour prior to services. Internment, Wellsville Cemetery.

Email condolences to the family at Allen-Hall Mortuary