Mary Lausanne Daines
Mary Lausanne Daines was born on June 6th, 1934 in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was born to Norman and Margaret Forsberg, landing in the middle of 3 children. At birth, she was given the name Mary Lausanne Forsberg. Mary because both her grandmothers had the same name. Her father served a mission for the church of latter-day saints in Lausanne, Switzerland; He thought it was the most beautiful place and he wanted to name the most beautiful thing in his life after it, which was his first daughter. Her older brother could never pronounce her name and it would come out as Zonnie, which quickly became her nickname and to this day most people know her as Zonnie.
Zonnie grew up in Sugar House, Utah. She attended Highland Park Elementary, Irving Middle School, and South Highschool. Her first job was babysitting for usually less than 25 cents an hour. From there she worked at a pharmacy doing inventory, then she was a gift wrapper at what she said was a high-end department store called Auerback’s. After that, she worked at Utah Power and Light on the weekends in their accounting division, as there weren’t any computers, she was in charge of sorting all the documents into piles, so they could get recorded. She went on to have a couple of other jobs in her life.
She spent her teenage years attending many art classes at the Art Barn in Salt Lake and attended the University of Utah for a short time. When she was 16 years old she went to Kansas to visit her brother in the army. While waiting in the car at a gas station, a man who was washing car windows noticed her, but she was unaware of him. Later she came to find out he was Welden Leon Daines, he was in the army with her brother, and after that day he made sure to ask her out when he got back to Utah. They fell in love and ended up getting married on March 12th, 1954 when she was only 19 years old. She had her first child at 21, Scott, then went on to have 3 more boys, Allyn, Brent, and Richard. Her greatest accomplishment in her life so far is having and raising four boys, all of which have been successful in their careers. One was a lawyer, one is a CPA, and the other two run a structural steel business. Her family is the most important thing in her life. Along with her 4 boys, she has 17 grandchildren, 26 great-grandchildren, and a few more on the way.
She grew up in a family who loved to fish and married a man who also loved to fish, they passed down the hobby to their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Many vacations were spent fishing in Last Chance, Idaho, and in Flaming Gorge, Utah, where they have a family cabin. They have been visiting Flaming Gorge for over 50 years. Going there to fish is a tradition that was started by her and my grandfather, now lots of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren love to fish because of it and that is something she cherishes deeply.
Zonnie said she has had three things that have been the hardest to deal with in her life so far, none of which is her diagnosis of macular degeneration. The first hardship was losing her oldest son, Scott, in 1997 to renal failure. Second, losing her husband in 2016 to a long battle with cancer. After losing her son and many years later her husband, she said you never recover from a loss, the pain never goes away or softens, you just learn to take things one day at a time and learn to live with the heartache. In her 60’s she started to notice her eyesight getting worse. At a doctor’s check-up, he informed her that she had macular degeneration. It ran in her family, her brother and her mother both had it.
The thought of losing her eyesight at the time didn’t frighten her, but what did, and still does, is cats. When she was diagnosed her mother was 86 and still doing many tasks, so she was clueless about what she was in for. With each passing day, her eyesight has gotten progressively worse. The third hardest thing she has had to deal with is giving up driving due to her condition. She said driving was her independence, she could go, do and be with whomever she wanted, when she wanted. She still keeps her car shiny and washed in her garage ready to be used by anyone who wants to drive her around.
Besides not being able to drive many things have changed for her since losing her eyesight. She can no longer paint, which she misses very dearly. She no longer cooks for herself, because she burns things, and can’t see that it is burnt. She can no longer identify which dollar bill or coin she has, they all look the same to her. Except; she can spot pennies! She can no longer write and see what she is writing, she purely relies on muscle memory to help her write birthday cards, sign her name, etc. She can no longer read a book, but she now listens to them. Books are her passion, She claims she is the “most well-read person she knows,” as she spends most of the hours of her day listening to books. Her favorite book so far is Michelle Obama’s book.
Zonnie has created her daily routines that she does to help with her lack of sight. Her average day is quiet. Every morning begins with a cup of coffee and a Lofthouse cookie.
Then she gets to her iPad, where she listens to her books or scrolls through her Instagram.
Lately, she has been watching a lot of politics and has gotten very involved with the 2020 election. She spent many of her earlier years as voter service chairmen for the league of women voters, going out to table to get people to vote.
Pre - Covid times, she would go monthly to her financial club which she has been attending for 25 years, with a group of women who get together to discuss stocks to buy. She also used to meet with a group of friends who are working on writing a book about being an 80-year-old woman. The family often brings or takes her to lunch. She has her favorite spots to go that know her by her first name and knows her order. She has a weekly grocery store visit planned with her daughter-in-laws. Often has visitors over in the evenings to help her with tasks, or just to keep her company. If she is alone it’s back to her books. She’s comfortable knowing she has a warm home, food, a loving family that helps take care of her, and her books to keep her company.
