Beatrice Aagard Davidson

Oct. 9, 1927 - Nov. 2, 2025

Beatrice Aagard Davidson passed away at the age of 98 on Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025, at the New Horizon’s Care Center in Lovell, Wyo., where she had been residing since August 2025.  

Her funeral will be Saturday, Nov. 15 at 10 a.m. at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Burlington, Wyo.

Beatrice was a long-time resident of Burlington, Wyo.  She was born Oct. 9, 1927, to James and Annie Winter Aagard.  She was the 11th of their 12 children and the last surviving. Beatrice grew up in a loving family circle learning how to churn butter, make soap, scrub clothes on the scrubbing board, milk cows, herd sheep, weed gardens, shock grain into sheaves, turn beans and stack hay as well as many other farm chores.  She would tell you that she preferred the outside chores to those in the house.

To attend elementary school, Beatrice would walk from her home to St. Joe’s School which was a one-room schoolhouse that had first through eighth grades combined with one teacher for the whole school.  To attend high school in Burlington, Beatrice walked 3 miles every day to catch the school bus and upon graduation attended the University of Wyoming for one year where she received her teaching certificate.  She said she always wanted to be a teacher.

After her year of college, Beatrice married Dennis William Davidson of Burlington on Aug. 22, 1948.   During their early married years, they moved around a lot and sometimes the only available house to move into would be old and without running water.  Later in life, Beatrice would say that she lived in 19 different houses and hauled a lot of water for drinking, cooking, laundry and baths.

Denny and Beatrice had 11 children:  Dennis (Barbara), Rebecca (Dan, deceased), Debby (Jim), Jared (Nancy), Tom (Patty), Mark, deceased (Anne), Carol (Mark, deceased), John (Jeana), Peter (Susan), Matt (Margaret) and Chris (Esther).  Beatrice loved having a big family and always wished she could have had a dozen children.

Beatrice did not ever use her teaching certificate to teach professionally, but she spent a great deal of time and effort teaching her children many wonderful lessons. Good grades were encouraged in the Davidson family and some years a dollar would be offered for every A on a report card.  Beatrice and Denny also taught their children a lot of life skills lessons like the value of working hard, being self-reliant, being a good community member, and serving others.    

Following in her mother’s footsteps, Beatrice always had a large garden wherever she lived and canned hundreds of quarts of food, some years more than 1500 quarts.  She tried to plant fruit trees wherever she could and lots of flowers.

Beatrice enjoyed sharing flowers with others and would also plant and weed the church flower beds for many years as well as take a different silk flower arrangement for the chapel each Sunday. She also loved taking food around to the elderly and to those in need of extra love. 

When Burlington became incorporated as a town, Beatrice served on the city council and began a city clean-up with volunteers cleaning up weeds, brush, old machinery and discarded items from vacant lots and she encouraged Burlington residents to clean up and beautify their homes and yards.  She initially spent a great deal of time keeping the newly created town park by the post office looking welcoming and in good shape.  She would prune the trees and make sure the playground equipment was painted and in good condition.  In 1990 Beatrice received the Citizen of the Century award for her many services to the town.

She also worked to get the road to the cemetery paved and she and her dad, James, helped get grass planted in the cemetery with James hauling water out to the cemetery to water the grass until water lines were installed.

Beatrice knew how much her father enjoyed the Burlington pioneer parade held on the 24th of July every year so she became a big supporter of the parade by helping with a family float each year.

During colder months, Beatrice would enjoy making tied quilts for her children and grandchildren.  Throughout her life, she continued to sew on her trusty Singer treadle sewing machine.  When she got too old to be able to wrestle with quilting, she started sewing fun, decorative pillowcases for her grandchildren.

Beatrice had a reputation for being a fun grandma.  Fond memories include tea parties and sleepovers on the living room floor, floating down the canal, hayrack rides, organizing rock hunts in the hills, playing games and choosing candies from the treat bucket. She also had a unique delight in scaring her grandchildren.  Family reunions often included a search for the family slurp monster, and Halloween was not complete without a scary costume and spooky encounter with any trick-or-treaters that were brave enough to come to the door. 

She is survived by 51 grandchildren, 146 great-grandchildren and 13 great-great-grandchildren.

Beatrice felt like it was her life’s work to teach her children about Jesus Christ and to raise them in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  She consistently read them Bible stories and took them to church every Sunday. She loved teaching in the nursery at church and would always prepare lots of object lessons and treats.  In her later years, she compiled books for her children and grandchildren that had teachings about Jesus and she would mail newsletters to her family that would share family news and also have gospel teachings in them.  Even while in New Horizons Care Center for the last couple of months, she would work on her newsletter.  Beatrice also set an example of going frequently to serve in the Billings temple and found great joy in the work she did there.