Fay Lunceford Muhlestein

December 3, 1928 ~ September 28, 2017
Fay Lunceford Muhlestein was born in Lakeview (Orem), UT on December 3, 1928 to Wilhelm Joseph Lunceford and Vernett Perkins. She was the third of ten children.
She passed away on Thursday, September 28, 2017 in Murray, UT.
Fay attended school at Lincoln High School, where she met and dated Harold Muhlestein. They both served missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Fay serving in the Eastern States Mission.
They were married on September 14, 1951 in the Salt Lake Temple and moved to Heber City, UT. After schooling, they moved to Monticello, where Harold began teaching school. They had five children along the way.
Harold was always full of summertime projects, including truck gardens in Dry Valley and Montezuma Canyon, chicken ranching with the famous Sunny Hill Farms egg productions, and the greenhouse business.
Harold had the ideas, and Fay and the children carried them out with her hard work.
After 19 years, Harold became too sick to teach school and ran for Justice of the Peace. He served for many years, with Fay helping him every day and acting as his secretary.
His grandest idea was to write a history of Monticello. Fay did much of the leg work for their first book. That ended up as a comprehensive, three-volume set that covered the history of San Juan County from the Hole in the Rock in 1888 to the year 2000.
Countless interviews were held, research done, and pages written, mostly conducted by Fay. She also compiled a Monticello Military Journal, with the records of all the service men and women she could find from Monticello from before WWI through 2005.
After finishing that, she was made the Monticello LDS Stake historian. In typical fashion, she started at the very beginning with the Hole in the Rock expedition and didn’t end until the year 2000.
The result is a two-volume work comprising 775 pages of detailed history of what ended up as the Monticello Stake.
Fay served faithfully in many church callings and was very aware of those around her. Her longest church calling was serving as editor of the Monticello Third Ward newsletter for more than two decades.  
She was always present at weddings, funerals and other events. Each death was greeted by a visit from Fay to express her love.
She also loved and followed her large posterity. She attended each and every grandchild’s marriage, including arduous journeys to California and Salt Lake City until she was too sick to do so.
Most notably, she is known for the years of loving care rendered to her husband. After his death, she cared for her own mother for an additional year and a half.
Fay is survived by her five children, Randolph George (Ladell) Muhlestein, James Harold (Cynthia) Muhlestein, Joseph Brent (Elaine) Muhlestein, Daniel Kay (Shelley) Muhlestein, and Jani Sue Muhlestein.
She is also survived by 26 grandchildren and 43 great-grandchildren.
She is predeceased by her husband, Harold George Muhlestein, her parents and four siblings.
Funeral services are scheduled for Friday, October 6 at 11 a.m. at the Monticello LDS Stake Center. A viewing will be held from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m.
Interment will follow the funeral at the Monticello City Cemetery.