Sonja (Balmer) Reid Obituary (1934 - 2020)

Our loving wife, mother, grandmother, sister, and friend, Sonja (Bo) Hedwig Balmer Reid, age 86, unexpectedly passed away at home November 30, 2020. Sonja was born in Salt Lake City (Holliday), UT on September 28, 1934, the first of four daughters born to Fritz and Hedy Balmer. She earned a bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University. She and her husband George Reid married in 1961 and soon after started their family. She loved being a devoted wife, mother, and grandmother. Her passion in life was her family - the whole extended family including everyone from ancestors to grandchildren. Throughout her life she was passionately committed to family history research, and thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of genealogical research, from driving to small cemeteries to find death dates on headstones in Scotland, to poring over old death records to decode hand-scrawled notations from hundreds of years ago. She relished being a grandmother and spent as much time as she could with her grandchildren, of whom she was incredibly proud. She was very active in the LDS church and enjoyed many friendships made there and at the Auburn Family History Center where she volunteered time to help others learn more about their families. She was extremely dedicated to her genealogy work in the church and remained active in her family history research up to the day she passed away. Sonja is preceded in death by her parents Fritz & Hedy Balmer, and her sister Janet Balmer. She is survived by her husband George Reid; her daughter Tamara Reid & son-in-law Patrick Turner, grandchildren Annelore & Sabine Turner; her son Bradley Reid, grandchildren Katie & Max Reid; son Jeffrey Reid & son-in-law Jim Duke, Jr.; sister Judy Balmer, sister Tanya Balmer Richardson & brother-in-law P.T. Richardson, and many Balmer and Glauser cousins. She loved dearly her cats Stripes, Wolfric, & B.W., and her grand-cats Halle, Mei Mei, Emile, Sabrina, & Lyndon, as well as grand-dogs Daisy & Buddy. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to FamilySearch http://donate.churchofjesuschrist.org/donations/familysearch.html, a non-profit family history organization dedicated to connecting families across generations. Due to the pandemic the burial will be for immediate family only at Tahoma National Cemetery.