Obituary
Valene Heer
February 5th, 1929 - January 31st, 2025
Valene Taggart Heer, age 95, of Rexburg, Madison County, Idaho, passed away due to congestive heart failure on January 31, 2025 surrounded by loving family.
Valene was born the youngest of six children in South Weber, Utah on February 5, 1929 to Jasper Seaman Taggart and Cecil June (Thompson) Taggart and at the age of one, moved to Aberdeen, Idaho. Her early years were spent on a family farm complete with dairy cows, pigs, chickens and draft horses that were used to plow fields, pull wagons and in the winter, pull sleighs. It was during these years that she determined that boys had more fun than girls and became a certified tomboy. After a straw stack fire burned down most of the farm, the family moved to the town of Aberdeen where her father worked in the potato industry. It was at this time in 2nd Grade that Valene met the funnest and funniest boy in the class named Leo Heer. The future would prove this friendship to be extremely fortunate for both of them.
At the age of 10, her mother fell ill to tuberculosis of the spine and was sent to Salt Lake City where she was confined to a hospital bed. Valene would take the bus to Roy, Utah each summer and stay with relatives so that she could visit her mother in the hospital. While in the hospital, her mother developed cancer and passed away when Valene was 17. During those seven years, Valene lived with two of her married sisters and her Senior year, with the family of the Aberdeen School Superintendent. She supported herself during these years with a job at the Aberdeen Sweet Shop and working behind the lunch counter at T&K’s Grocery. Her high school years were filled with basketball, softball, drum majorette, drumming in the band, drill team and tumbling but her favorite activity was anything that involved her growing love for singing. School operettas, plays, class programs, church programs, American Legion events and other community events all provided her with many opportunities to share and hone her beautiful voice and this became a life-long love.
Another life-long love began to develop with her school friend Leo Heer. He was the Class President in high school and this is when they began a more serious relationship. After high school, Leo headed to Moscow, Idaho to attend the University of Idaho and Valene went to Pocatello, Idaho to attend Idaho State University. One year apart was all it took to convince the two of them that they needed to spend the rest of their lives together and they were married in Pocatello, Idaho on June 20,1948. When Leo later joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, their marriage was solemnized and their family was sealed in 1960 in the Idaho Falls LDS Temple. They settled on the Heer family farm where Leo worked on the farm and Valene kept house in a tiny 10’ x 30’ hired man’s house. The best feature, especially in winter, was that the outhouse for the entire farm was just across the road from them in the orchard. In 1949, the couple moved to Chicago, Illinois so that Leo could attend and graduate from Coyne Electrical School. After a short stay in Blackfoot, Idaho, they moved to Idaho Falls, Idaho where Leo accepted a position at Idaho Potato Starch. In 1950, a job for Leo at Westinghouse at the new National Reactor Testing Station meant that Valene got her first real home in the small village of Ammon, Idaho and the family grew to nine with their seven children. The friends and relationships that she developed over the next 20+ years on Avocet Drive in the Ammon LDS 2nd Ward would last a lifetime. These years provided her with countless opportunities to sing at church functions, community events and even multiple years on top of the announcer’s perch at the War Bonnet Roundup dressed as the Statue of Liberty belting out The Star-Spangled Banner! Her accompaniment was a 33-rpm record of the orchestral arrangement played by Leo through the announcer’s microphone!
A change in employment for Leo in 1969 took him to Rexburg, Idaho as General Manager of Intermountain Block and Pipe. After driving every day on the old two-lane highway for three years, the decision was made to move the family to Rexburg to a home on West 1st South across the street from the baseball diamond in Porter Park. 1974 would bring the final family move to West Main Street in Rexburg and the wonderful home that Valene loved to call her own for the remainder of her earthly journey. This move happened just prior to the Teton Dam Flood in June of 1976 and after the clean-up and repairs, she was able to re-decorate her home in the colors and style that she had always dreamed of complete with powder blue carpet and 3D wall treatments.
Valene spent a lifetime of service to others as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and as such, held multiple positions and assignments. Her favorites were any that involved her love of music and included Ward Chorister, Singing Mothers, Ward and Stake Choirs, Relief Society Stake Chorister and numerous performances as a soloist and in groups. Another of her favorite assignments was as a Temple Worker with her husband in both the Idaho Falls Temple and later in the Rexburg Temple for over a decade. She also opened her home in later years to five of her grandchildren who came from Denmark to Idaho and attended high school at Madison High School. She was happy to do this because she felt a sense of gratitude to the people who gave her a home to live in all the years her mother was in the hospital in Utah.
Valene is survived by six of her seven children including Garth (Eveonne Christensen) Heer, Vicki (Richard) Schneider, Crystal Heer, John (Carrie Martinez) Heer, Douglas (Julie England) Heer and Patrice (Knud) Mogensen. Her life was also blessed with 31 grandchildren, 51 great-grandchildren and 2 great-great grandchildren. Valene was preceded in death by her husband Leo, eldest daughter Shelley Moser, parents Jasper and June Taggart, sisters Irma (Clarence) Poulson, Helen (Marion) Wride, Dorothy (Jack) Dahle and brothers Lyle (Leila) Taggart and Lynne (Ethel) Taggart as well as a granddaughter, Angela Moser Burton.