When Tennille Donaldson Larsen is out cleaning headstones for her business, Worley-Jensen Monuments, she might stumble across a headstone or two that she wasn’t contracted to clean. Often she’ll pause, looking at the inscription of a child’s name or a veteran’s honor. When she leaves, that headstone is clean as well, an act of anonymous kindness to a family she doesn’t know.
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Her tender touch and kind heart are the reason Larsen is 2017 Sun Advocate Successful Woman of the Year.
“She knows how to spend time with people, she is not in a rush even if she has to stop doing something pressing. In her life, people come first,” said Debbie Donaldson, Larsen’s mother.
Precise design
Working with death is something that most people shy away from. Larsen and her husband Kelly find healing and a quiet joy as they help families tell a story through a beloved’s headstone. The headstone is often the last thing that family members arrange when they have loss. It is a very difficult step for many to take. Larsen spends hundreds of hours working to make the headstone perfect family’s needs.
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It’s not uncommon for a headstone design to go through revisions (even 10 or 15) and Larsen spends tens of hours on each revision.
“I designed my own brother’s headstone. It was difficult, and I put a lot of time and energy into it. I know how much it matters, so I try to put that much time and effort into other people’s stones,” Larsen said.
There are no “cookie-cutter” monuments because Larsen is meticulously striving to tell a person’s unique story through their monument.
Because she has faced tragic grief herself, Larsen understands the grief families feel when their lives abruptly change. She has learned not to feel any judgement, “Grief hurts all of us. There is not a right or wrong way to grieve, and sometimes people just need to talk before they’re ready to think about a headstone,” she added.
Miner’s Memorial
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For two years straight, Larsen and her husband, met with Dennis Ardohain and Frank Markosek weekly to work on the Miner’s Memorial in the Price City Peace Gardens. They tried to get to know as much about the fallen miners, meeting their families and listening.
By the time the monument was finished in June 2015, the Larsenss were humbled by the experience, “We could literally feel the miner’s gratitude for the monument- that they were remembered,” she added.
There are now satellite miner’s monuments in Castle Dale, East Carbon, Scofield and Helper.
The Larsens purchased Worley-Jensen Monuments five years ago. The business offers headstones, memorial stones, benches, granite tiles and pet markers.
Growing up in Price and Emery county, the couple lived in Spanish Fork for 10 years before moving home. Their three children have enjoyed coming back to Price where they are closer to extended family.
Sun Advocate Successful Woman of the Year, Tennille Donaldson Larsen
Tennielle Donaldson Larsen, owner of Worley-Jensen Monuments, is the Sun Advocate’s 2017 Successful Woman of the Year.