Mary Castleton Hall

Mary Castleton Hall, who spent a lifetime accompanying everyone else, played her final measure and went home to Ray on October 30, 2026. Mary was born June 5, 1936, in Garland, Utah, the youngest of five children of Harold James Castleton and Hilda Jane Howard.

Music came into Mary's life when she was five, on the back of a swerving truck. Her uncle was leaving on a mission and sold the family his piano, and she held her breath the whole drive home. She could read notes before she could read words, mentally cutting pies into halves, quarters, and sixteenths until they became half, quarter, and sixteenth notes. The night before her first recital, she broke her arm. She played anyway, a left-hand-only arrangement of "Bill Grogan's Goat," to the audience's delight.

As a teenager, Mary was given a key to the Bear River Stake Tabernacle and permission to practice the pipe organ whenever she wanted. She would look up to find it dark outside and walk home to the sound of air sighing out of the pipes. Her teacher, Dr. Irving Wasserman of Logan, told her a time comes when a person must stop absorbing and start to give. She took him at his word, accompanying soloists, choirs, and dance classes and teaching piano to children and adults in every town she lived in.

Her faith came early and was just as sure. Walking home from Primary, she often visited the elderly Patriarch Joseph H. Kirkham on his front porch. When she heard he was failing, seven-year-old Mary asked if he could give her a patriarchal blessing. On September 26, 1943, he did, signing it: "Read often. Live for. Pray for. And you will be happy." She did all three. The next June, on her eighth birthday, she arrived at the Logan Temple to be baptized, only to learn no baptisms were scheduled. Seeing her tears, temple president ElRay L. Christiansen called in two ordinance workers and had the font filled just for her. That same day, she was baptized on behalf of more than sixty-five people who had died.

At Bear River High School, Mary was the first freshman ever admitted to the a cappella choir. When the orchestra needed a cellist, she said she didn't play the cello. They said they'd teach her, so she said okay. After graduating in 1954, she lived with her brother Ralph and his wife, Emelyn, who gave her room and board so she could attend LDS Business College, and then studied at the University of Utah.

Mary and Ray raised five children: Bradley Raymond Hall (Pamela Oler), Sherrie Lynne Hall Everett, Brian Wendell Hall (JoAnn Ipson), Bruce Harold Hall (Carmen Wolthuis), and Brent Charles Hall (the late LeAnn Lyman ). Across Colorado and Nebraska, she stood beside Ray through what the family calls their "10-year mission," holding church in their home. Wherever she lived, Mary served wherever she was needed: as organist, chorister, auxiliary president, Relief Society teacher, and later as a temple worker.

One day Ray came home with a 50-pound bag of peanuts, dropped it on the kitchen floor, and announced that this was how they would build a chapel. Mary figured out how. She worked out the recipe, turned her kitchen into a production line, and made peanut brittle an annual tradition that raised the money the branch needed. Every year, when the batches were done, she scrubbed caramel-colored, sweet, sticky residue off the walls and windows and out of every crack and crevice. Mary never saw that chapel in McCook, Nebraska, in this life. Some of her children did.

In Cedar City, their home became the stopping point for everyone discovering Southern Utah, and her yard filled with flowers. Mary was a survivor of Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer, and she met that, like everything, with grit and gratitude. She never needed much to see beauty. "It is more like a museum," she once wrote of window-shopping, "and shows me how to be creative with what I have."

In 2022, Mary and Ray moved to Legacy Village in Provo, where they cared for each other until his passing in 2024. Mom loved the friends and family who filled her years at Legacy Village with laughter, love, and great visits.

Mary was preceded in death by her husband, Raymond Wendell Hall; her parents, Harold and Hilda Castleton; her siblings, Ralph Castleton, Stanley Castleton, Merle Castleton, and Louise Castleton and their spouses; daughter-in-law LeAnn Lyman Hall; and granddaughter Erica Mary Hall.

She is survived by her five children, 15 grandchildren, more than 20 great-grandchildren, and a large circle of piano students, choir members, family, and friends who still hear her music.

Mom, you taught us to read the notes before we could read the words. We'll keep on playing…and singing. Give Dad our love. We'll see you both soon.

"There is so much beauty to enjoy if we look for it." —Mary Castleton Hall

Our family is deeply grateful to the staff at Legacy Village; to Natalie and DeyAnne — the team at Renew Hospice; and to Holly Carter, who cared for both Mom and Dad with such tenderness.
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A funeral will be held Friday, November 6, 2026, at 11:00 a.m. at Legacy Village, 4146 University Avenue, Provo, Utah, with a visitation beginning at 10:00 a.m. Services will be livestreamed and recorded for later viewing at www.nelsonmortuary.com. Interment will follow on Saturday, November 7, 2026, at 11:00 a.m. at the Cedar City Cemetery.
Thank you to Nelson Family Mortuary for handling funeral arrangements.