Tributes abound for Sister Hunter

She was the kind of mother who laughed hard when the dog ate the pot roast she had cooked for company and performed cartwheels and hand-stands into her late 50s just because she could.

That's how Elayne Allebest remembered her mother, Inis Egan Hunter, during funeral services in Salt Lake City Monday for the 93-year-old wife of former LDS Church President Howard W. Hunter.

"She was a magnificent human being," full of Christianity, charity, resourcefulness and faith, Allebest said, a woman who had the talent for making "a silk purse out of a sow's ear" and "making a near-riot out of a family reunion."

Allebest shared the private side of her mother's life — known to Latter-day Saints as a close companion and second wife of President Hunter — with scores of family members and friends gathered at the Ensign LDS Stake Center. LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley presided and spoke briefly during the service, and was accompanied by both counselors in the church's First Presidency — Presidents Thomas S. Monson and Henry B. Eyring.

Several members of the Quorum of the Twelve were also seated on the stand, and selected members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir provided music, led by the choir's conductor Craig Jessop and Tabernacle organist Linda Margetts.

Allebest remembered her mother could "do it all," from creating heirloom porcelain dolls to refinishing thrift store furniture to serving as stand-in for an LDS film when the actor failed to appear one day at the LDS Motion Picture Studio. Allebest, who was working at the studio at the time, offered to find a stand in, dashed home and convinced her mother to memorize the lines. "I can see her cameo performance to this day," she remembered.

As for her marriage to President Hunter late in life, "I think he married her because she was happy. That happiness was a magnet to all those around her," she said, remembering her mother's love for her husband and the Book of Mormon.

Sister Hunter served as an escort in the Church Office Building for several years before their marriage, and when asked about her job, she would say, "I just tell people where to go and where to get off." Her humor was contagious, Allebest said, remembering that when some of her former boyfriends had long lost interest in her, they would keep in contact with her mother.