Margaret Keller
Margaret Benson Keller, 97, of Nampa, died Saturday, July 3, 1999 at the Parke View Care Center in Burley, Idaho. Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. Wednesday, July 7, 1999 at the Smith LDS Chapel, Nampa, 1500 W. Smith Ave. Ext., with Bishop Jerry Christensen officiating. Burial will follow at Hillcrest Memorial Gardens, Caldwell.
Margaret was born February 16, 1902 in Whitney, Idaho, to George Taft and Sarah Sophia (Dunkley) Benson. She was born and raised in a two-room farm-house, the third of eleven children, where the family sang together, played together, worked hard together, prayed together and stayed together.
Along with the responsibility of household and garden duties, as the oldest daughter, she thinned and topped beets with the best of them. She rode in a buggy or sleigh pulled by a horse to school. As a teenager, she won the district horseback riding competition in Logan. She loved to sing, and she sang in her youth with a very popular trio. Later she directed children, youth and adult choruses.
She attended Utah Agricultural College in Logan and studied Home Economics. In 1922, she married Rulon M. Keller in the Logan Temple. They went to Pocatello where he attended Idaho State College under a basketball scholarship. One year later, they took over his farm in Mink Creek, Idaho where their eight children were born.
In 1944, they sold the farm in Mink Creek and moved to Preston. Her husband was called as the first Bishop of the Preston 7th Ward. In 1951, the family moved to Caldwell. Since the death of her husband in 1970, she has lived in Nampa for the past 28 years.
Margaret enjoyed traveling and traveled to the Hawaiian Islands, Texas, Washington D.C. and San Diego. In 1975, at the age of 73, she traveled with her sister, Lera Whittle, to England to serve a full-time mission for the LDS Church. In 1989, she was called to give a tribute to her oldest brother, President Ezra Taft Benson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, for his 90th birthday. Her tribute was transmitted on satellite television as she spoke at the podium of the Salt Lake Tabernacle.
She was people oriented and had many friends. She especially had a personal love and attachment for each of her forty grandchildren. 100 great-grandchildren and three great-great grandchildren. She always kept track of them and knew what they were doing and where they lived. She was a great homemaker and a loving and kind mother and grand-mother. She has left a legacy in whose footsteps her descendants will find joy in following. She will be greatly missed by the many lives that are better for having known her.
Margaret is survived by her six children; MarRue Simmons and husband Boyd of Provo, Utah, Marco Forsgren and husband Seth of Nampa, Beth Thompson and husband Bob of Burley, Idaho, Lamond B. Keller and wife Sue of Albion, Idaho, George B. Keller and wife Shareen of Nampa and James L. Keller and wife Renee of Meridian. She is also survived by many grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren, two sisters; Lera B. Whittle of Provo and Sarah B. Eveleth and husband Tom of Redding, California and many other family members. She was preceded in death by her parents, husband Rulon, two infant sons, one grandson, one great-granddaughter, seven brothers and one sister.
Friends may call Tuesday from 12-8 p.m. at Alsip Funeral Chapel, Nampa. The family will greet friends from 6-8 p.m. Tuesday evening and from 1-1:45 p.m. Wednesday at the church.

Idaho Press-Tribune, Tuesday, July 6, 1999 2C