Aino Sylvia Marsell Cannon

Sylvia was born November 8, 1917 in Telluride, Colorado of Finnish immigrant parents, Hilma and Eli Marsell. Her family moved to Colstrip, Montana after the stock market crash of 1929. She graduated from Colstrip High School in 1935 and from the University of Montana in 1939. She received a certificate of graduation from the LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City after finishing a one year internship and course of study in dietetics. While interning in Salt Lake she met a young doctor named Abram H. Cannon. They were married on March 30, 1942. After World War II they settled in Chicago, Illinois where he practiced radiology and she stayed at home to raise their family. In 1972 they moved to Fairbanks, Alaska where Abram practiced radiology at the Fairbanks Clinic. She remained in Alaska after Abram's retirement and death in 1986 and enjoyed the company of her son Jim and his family. In 1992 she moved to Spokane, Washington to be near her daughter Meg and her family. After suffering a stroke in 2002, she moved to Denver, Colorado to live with her daughter Carol and her family. She died at home at the age of 90 on June 21, 2008. She was preceded in death by her husband, Abram H. Cannon; her three sisters: Vieno Eastman, Vuokko (Pat) Marsell, and Taimi Margaret Reynolds; and her grandson, Evan F. Abel. She is survived by her children: James (Mary) Cannon, Meg (Bill) Abel, and Carol (Leo) Vera; seven grandchildren: Eleazar Vera, Gabriela (Artemio) Ochoa, Israela Vera, Rafael Vera, Miguel Vera, Abram Vera, and Molly Abel; one great-granddaughter, Julieta Ochoa; and numerous nieces and nephews. Granny loved spending summers at the family cabin at East Rosebud Lake in south central Montana. She had an indomitable will and spirit that carried her through the hard times. She was a loving generous mother devoted to her family and loved ones. We were blessed to have her quiet caring presence in our lives and we will miss her greatly. Granny followed the sun. Breakfast followed by the newspaper, with the sun on her back, at the front of the house. Lunch, before the windows' crossing, soup and juice to the sun. Afternoon, on the porch, napping and view the gardens drink of setting sun. Habits, formed to nurture and care for herself and others. Habits formed with her husbands days. Works becoming a way of caring for us in private thought....enabling wondrous decisive acts. I wondered at her firmness and was warmed by her care. We call it ""mothering"", and sometimes we took for granted her ""habits"". Those habits are what ultimately guaranteed a better life for those in her care. Though in her later life, we thought ourselves the caretakers, we were all in her care. Pride in ourselves now diminished by realizing, our habits of care, were learned at the foot of her sunny chair.