A life sketch for Sirkku Skousen (1941– 2024) by her husband, Royal Skousen

Sirkku Unelma Skousen has died at 83 years of age. She died on 9 November 2024 in Spanish Fork, Utah, with her husband Royal at her side along with three of her seven children: Nina, Nathaniel, and Ben.

Sirkku was born on 27 April 1941. Her father was Sulo Härkönen and her mother Aino Ikonen, both now deceased. Sirkku was born in Rautio, Finland, in western Finland. At the time, her family were refuges from the war with the Soviet Union, and were forced to evacuate from their Uukuniemi parish, in Karelia, Finland. During the Continuation War with the Soviet Union (1941–44), they were permitted to return and live in their home in Karelia. But with the final peace with the Soviet Union in 1944, the family once more had to move to the west, out of Karelia.

After the war, Sirkku was first raised in Kesälahti, Finland, but her family soon moved to Kumpuranta, Finland, where her father had received some land to settle on. The oldest of seven children, Sirkku played a major role in working with her father, sometimes spending the entire night helping her father with the fishing nets out on the lake.

Sirkku started primary school at age 7 and attended the primary school in Kumpuranta, walking more than a kilometer each day back and forth to the school. Sirkku loved learning and did exceptionally well, so much so that her father paid for her to attend a female secondary school in Savonlinna, Finland, from age 13 through 17.

From age 18 through 21, she worked as a clerk and accountant in Tampere, Finland, boarding with her aunt Kaisa.

Her first marriage, in 1962, was to Touko Tuominen, with the birth of Mikko in 1963. The marriage was not a happy one for Sirkku, and the couple separated in 1965 and were later divorced. In 1966 she went on a trip to Russia, but ended up getting appendicitis from contaminated water in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg); upon returning to Finland, she had her appendix removed in the spring of 1966.

Earlier that spring she met Royal Skousen, a missionary for the LDS Church in Finland. They met at her door, and they spent their first hour together talking about Russian and German literature. And that summer, when he visited her in the hospital after her appendix operation, they fell in love.

In the summer of 1967 she was baptized into the LDS Church. This was after Royal had finished his mission and was in the United States. In June 1968, he returned to marry Sirkku, on 24 June 1968, in the LDS chapel in Hämeenlinna, Finland. The marriage was performed by the Finnish mission president, Udell Poulsen. And this second marriage would last for more than 56 years.

Soon after their marriage, Sirkku got her permit, along with her son Mikko, to immigrate to the United States. Royal accompanied them to America. With Sirkku's full support, Royal attempted numerous times to adopt Mikko, but he was legally prevented from doing so until 1981 when Mikko reached legal age. In 1976 Sirkku became an American citizen and was always very proud to be an American.

For one year Sirkku lived in Provo, Utah, with her husband Royal and with Mikko. For two brief periods that year, she worked outside the home while Royal finished his last undergraduate year at Brigham Young University. In the spring of 1969 she declared that she was no longer going to do that kind of menial work and that Royal would simply have to support them all, which he was able to do.

In July 1969 she was sealed to Royal in the LDS temple in Logan, Utah. She was now eternally married to her beloved.

In 1969, she moved with Royal and Mikko to Urbana, Illinois, where Royal worked on his PhD in linguistics at the University of Illinois. Two children were born to them in Urbana: Lawrence in 1969 and Angela (Angie) in 1971.

In the summer of 1971, she visited Finland for the first time since her 1968 emigration. Along with Royal and their growing family, she would make over a dozen trips to Finland in her lifetime, staying with relatives and enjoying her Finnish heritage. In 1982 the whole family lived in Kangasala, Finland, while Royal lectured as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Tampere. They spent that summer at the Härkönen homestead in Kumpuranta.

During 1971–72, she assisted Royal as a Finnish language informant as he wrote his PhD in linguistics, helping him understand the intricacies of the Finnish language.

In 1972, she moved with Royal and their three children to Austin, Texas, where for seven years Royal was an assistant professor in linguistics at the University of Texas. In the second year in Austin, Sirkku insisted they buy their own home, and so in the summer of 1973 they moved into that first home. While living in Austin, three more children were born: Christina (Nina) in 1973, Nathaniel in 1976, and Benjamin (Ben) in 1979.

Around 1975, when their television broke down, Sirkku declared that there would be no more television in the home, and there has been none since. In Austin, Sirkku learned to love classical music. She especially liked to listen to Vivaldi and Handel. Sirkku liked her husband to read books to her out loud, and over the years together they read numerous classics in literature and serious histories, including Tolkien, Twain, Dostoevsky, and Solzhenitsyn. And on a regular basis, Royal read the scriptures to her, usually the Book of Mormon or selections from the Bible.

At the University of Texas, she also took a number of courses in English and in Russian. Sirkku had a natural gift in learning foreign languages, virtually absorbing them without much explicit instruction. She learned English this way.

In 1979, Sirkku and Royal moved their now large family to Orem, Utah, with Royal teaching English and later linguistics at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Often during these years Sirkku assisted Royal in improving his Finnish so that he could teach courses in Finnish literature and also do further research into the language. When they moved to Orem, they bought their second home.

In 1984, when she was 42 years old, she gave birth to Stephen (Steve to his friends). Six months into her pregnancy, she broke her foot when she slipped on the ice, and she consequently had to undergo a complex operation to fix her ankle. Three months later, in Provo, Utah, she delivered Stephen by Caesarian section, just one more complication in giving birth to her lastborn.

From 1989 up to the year of her death, in 2024, she assisted Royal in his work as editor of the critical text of the Book of Mormon, with the following significant contributions on her part:

In 1989, she was the first one to declare (and without hesitation) that two leaves purportedly from the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon were forgeries (the two leaves were first found in the early 1980s in the University of Chicago library); she said the writing was much too large and did not look like Oliver Cowdery's hand when he took down Joseph Smith's dictation in other, authentic parts of the original manuscript. And this impressionistic claim of hers was soon vindicated by normal linguistic analysis of the document.

In May 1991, she spent two weeks in Independence, Missouri, working with archivist Ron Romig of the RLDS Church, doing the descriptive bibliography of the printer's manuscript of the Book of Mormon (all 466 pages), while her husband Royal spent the two weeks checking his transcript of the manuscript against the actual document.

In June 1994, she spent one week in Independence, Missouri, as part of a team of researchers examining all the different papers that make up the two Book of Mormon manuscripts.

In February 2001, she was the first one to declare the loss of independence for Book of Mormon researchers when FARMS was absorbed into BYU; and she courageously declared this in a public setting.

In 2007, she insisted that her husband make the LDS Church leadership aware that he was going to publish the original text of the Book of Mormon with, it turned out, Yale University Press. This meant that the LDS Church would end up having some input on that publication, including a change in the title to The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text.

In 2007, she recommended (along with typographer Jonathan Saltzman) that the Yale edition use highly readable sense-lines to display the text rather than the traditional paragraphs or the verse indentations found in standard Book of Mormon editions; Royal is now very glad that he followed this suggestion.

In 2008, she helped her husband proof the Yale edition of the Book of Mormon, going through the text three times.

In 2007, after living in the same home in Orem, Utah, for nearly 30 years, Sirkku decided that they needed to move. She and her husband bought a plot of land in Spanish Fork, and this time she designed her own home in the Finnish style, which included a sauna in the basement. She also loved decorating her home with original art, art that she and Royal had regularly collected over the years.

During all her married life, Sirkku was a homemaker and caregiver to all her children as well as to her husband. When asked if she worked, she was always proud to say, "Yes, I work. My work is in the home."

In 2020, at age 79, she began to suffer from the afflictions of old age: she fell on a Caribbean cruise, breaking her left arm and wrist; afterwards, she began to lose weight and eventually suffered from short-term memory loss (but not long-term); and finally in August and September 2024 she suffered from two slips in the bathroom, which led to her breaking two vertebrae and subsequent severe pain. She was diagnosed as having an advanced case of osteoporosis. During this time, she courageously underwent numerous visits to the emergency room and hospital stays, and two weeks in rehabilitation, but alas, these efforts failed. Her last days were spent in hospice care, with the special help of Valeo Hospice and BrightStar Care, both providing excellent professional care. She and her family were very grateful for their help.

Sirkku was universally recognized for her kindness and thoughtfulness, in particular towards all children, especially her own grandchildren. Her smile was so natural and unaffected. And her natural beauty, as can be seen in pictures from her early adult life, was extraordinary.

But most importantly for her, she had a firm testimony of the Book of Mormon, the LDS Church, and her Savior Jesus Christ, and this all resulted from a personal confirmation from the Spirit in 1966. She loved to express her testimony to one and all, including fellow passengers as she traveled to Europe and back. She was never ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She was always able to carry on natural conversations with whoever she met and on virtually any subject. And she did the sealing work in LDS temples for hundreds of her deceased ancestors, all the way back to the 1650s. We are sure she was greeted by them most joyously when she passed beyond the veil. We will truly miss her and look forward to some future day when we can all embrace our beloved Sirkku once more. God be with you till we meet again.

Sirkku is survived by her husband, Royal Jon Skousen and seven children (and their spouses): Mikko (Karin), Lawrence, Angela (Daniel [Dan] Ware), Christina, Nathaniel (Jocelyn), Benjamin (Amber), and Stephen (Rebekah), plus 12 grandchildren (she dearly loved each one of them): Samuel (Sam), Elisabeth, and Hannah Ware; Isaak, Kaleb, Juliette, Jeremiah, and Levi Skousen; Sophia and Jasper Skousen; Jackson and Samara Skousen.

She also has three living siblings in Finland: her sister Anja Ahlblad, her brother Pertti Härkänen, and her sister Eila Hietari.

Funeral services will be held on Saturday, 23 November 2024 at the Sunny Ridge Third Ward, 1470 East 130 North, Spanish Fork, Utah 48660.

The services are under the direction of the Walker Sanderson Funeral Home, 646 East 800 North, Orem, Utah 84097, 801-226-3500

A webcast of the services is available at https://view.oneroomstreaming.com/index.php?data=MTczMjA4MTkzNzMzNzczMiZvbmVyb29tLWFkbWluJmNvcHlfbGluaw==