Lawyer, teacher Geddes dies at 75

She was a 4-year-old girl bathing in the kitchen sink with her younger sister when a gas explosion killed six of her family members on a sweltering August day in 1940.

Sylvia Myers Geddes, 75, died this week after a battle with a degenerative muscular disease. Her loved ones attended her funeral Friday in Lindon, Utah.

She was one of four children who survived the butane tank explosion that sparked a three-alarm blaze 70 years ago at a Gass Avenue house. Four of her siblings along with her father, mother and a neighbor's child died.

For Geddes, the blast would foreshadow a life both cursed and blessed. One that would test her resilience.

Although she escaped the blast unscathed, her 2-year-old sister who was bathing with her in the sink perished. She also saw her father carried out of the house, but he was burned so severely she didn't know who he was until he spoke.

"She recognized his voice," said her daughter Elizabeth Christensen, 41.

Geddes is survived by an older sister, seven children and 25 grandchildren.

Years after the explosion, Geddes was run over by a car, crushing her pelvis. She had to learn to walk again.

In 1967, Geddes obtained a bachelor's degree in early childhood education from Brigham Young University. By then, she was married with five children.

Her husband developed Parkinson's disease, prompting her to pursue a marketable skill. In 1986, she earned a law degree from the University of Hawaii at age 50. She practiced law in northern Idaho and opened a family mediation center to counsel families in the midst of divorce.

However, six years into her new career she was diagnosed with polymyositis, leading her to give up her law practice in the mid-1990s.

"My mother had a life of trauma after trauma," Christensen said. "My mother didn't think she had a hard life. She viewed it as a fairytale, wonderful life."