Eulogy for Lydia Marie (Settle) Laws

This is the obituary I delivered on November 1, 2025, for my brother’s wife, Lydia, who was killed in a plane crash on October 21, 2025.

In Christian tradition, yesterday was All Hallows’ Eve. For ancient Christians, it was a time of fasting, prayer, and reflection in preparation for the two days to follow: All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. On All Saints’ Day the faithful honored Christian saints and martyrs, typically with a feast. The next day, November 2, they celebrated All Souls’ Day, which was for all kindred dead. It was typically a day of solemnity and mourning in which people prayed for those in purgatory that they could advance to heaven.

In the western world, these traditions were merged with local indigenous customs to create The Day of the Dead, which is celebrated throughout Latin America on November 1. Those celebrating place mementos and photos of their departed loved ones on altars, light candles, visit cemeteries, have picnics, throw parades. The day is a fascinating blend of mourning and celebration, of keeping the dead alive while wishing them a happy journey in the afterlife.

On this Day of the Dead, we are gathered to celebrate and commemorate Lydia Laws in similar fashion, to keep her with us while also wishing her a happy journey beyond the grave. And of course, we mourn with those who mourn.

Lydia Marie (Settle) Laws was born on March 6, 1979, in Houston, Harris County, Texas, to William Hugh Settle Jr. and Cheryl Lynn Settle. She was raised in Bleiblerville, Texas, and then spent her middle and high school years in Corpus Christi, Texas. Her childhood on the family farm, Mockingbird Hill, was idyllic. She was active in 4-H and would enter her baked goods into the county fair each year. She and her sister enjoyed playing together outside, catching frogs and fireflies. An early photo shows Amy and Lydia together on a horse, their dad looking on. (Check out Amy Angell’s Facebook page for that photo.) When we were looking for music for the service, Amy recommended “Give Said the Little Stream.” In our faith for kids roughly my age, this was a standard sung in our Primary singing time almost every Sunday. It was also a standard at many family home evenings. It’s simple in musical structure and in lyrics, and we’ll hear a youth choir perform it later. It was a family favorite in the Settle household, in part because Bill played it on a guitar and the kids sang. (Bill, you were this close to being asked to accompany the youth today.)

When Lydia was in seventh grade, her family moved to Corpus Christi. I remember the Sunday they showed up. I was a freshman, Stephen was in seventh grade, Ruthanne was in fifth grade. The Settles rolled in like country music stars—two beautiful girls the ages of my brother and me, an older brother who played football and would do so for our hometown team, and a baby brother who was cute as a button and bouncing off the walls.

The girls were in our Sunday School class. They opened their mouths to introduce themselves and had the biggest Texas country accents anyone in our class had ever heard. They said they were from Brenham, where Blue Bell Ice Cream was made but actually not from Brenham but an even smaller town near Brenham but they said they were from Brenham because people had heard of that but hadn’t heard of their real town. And honestly, till four days ago, I thought the “real” town was Bellville. But Stephen says, “Lydia was born in Houston, raised in Bleiblerville, went to school in Bellville and church in Brenham.” My wife, Lauren, is a huge Blue Bell fan and turns off hearing when she hears Lydia lived anywhere near its birthplace.

I may not be remembering right, but I think we had the Settles at our house for dinner that first Sunday. If it wasn’t then, it was soon thereafter. Either way, we hung out as families quite a bit. I remember doing some of our Christmas Eve celebrations with the Settles. Theirs involved depicting the Nativity in robes and everyone playing parts. There was food and laughter and Clay bouncing off the walls.

From that first Sunday, Stephen was smitten with Lydia. In the old parlance of the day, they “went around together.” Then they broke up but stayed friends. Sometimes they drifted closer, sometimes further. They dated other people. Lydia was a Tiggerette in High School. Her big sister Tiggerette was a girl I dated.

For people not of our faith, in many parts of the world, youth participate in early morning seminary to learn Gospel lessons. Class often begins at 6:00 am. One of our dear friends from that era wrote us this:

“I remember finding Amy and Lydia’s car in the ditch one morning on our way to Seminary and pulling them out and giving first aid to their cuts, and putting my arms around them and comforting their fears until their dad could arrive. They both will always hold a fond place in my heart.”

Not sure which superstar driver put the car in the ditch. Amy?

When Amy and I graduated, Stephen drove Lydia to seminary. He used to knock on her window to let her know he was there. Stephen said, “She’d never be ready to go, so I had to knock on her window to wake her up. And then she’d get ready, and I’d wait for her. Eventually she would come out.”

A lot of people on Facebook and otherwise have commented on Lydia’s bright personality and her kindness to other people. These are all true. But she had another side. She had an iron will, and she had a streak of fire in her personality. In those days, we had a kid in our congregation, our age, who had a knack for stirring up trouble. We’ll call him Jack. He alternately befriended and alienated various youth at school and at Church with various escapades and dramas. Lydia was friendly with him in both places . . . until she wasn’t. My dad was bishop at the time, and I believe Bill was one of his counselors. Amy and I were probably sophomores. We were at the Church on a Tuesday night for youth activities, and suddenly a commotion developed because one of the youth went running through the halls as well as the parking lot of our activity, yelling, “Lydia is about to fight Jack!” We all went running, my dad included. We rounded the corner to the front door of the Church, and the sight we encountered was decidedly not what any of us had imagined. The boy involved was probably a head taller than Lydia. But she held him at bay with his back pressed up against the door. She had one hand on his throat and another cocked back ready to clock him.

He was yelling, “No! Let’s settle this at school!”

She yelled back, “We’re not settling this at school where you can get your whole posse to beat up a girl! We’re doing it now!”

Dad and another leader broke up the fight. On the way home, Dad said to Stephen and me, “You know, I almost wish I had arrived about 1 minute later. Cuz she woulda whooped him. And that would have solved a lot of problems for all of us. He had no problem fighting a girl. He just wanted to do it where he could fight 5 on 1 cuz she could have taken him 1 on 1.”

After high school, Stephen joined the US Marine Corps and Lydia went to school at then-Utah Valley State College in Orem, Utah. In 1999, I got married in Utah. Stephen got leave from the Marines to attend, Lydia attended the wedding festivities, and the two became romantic again. They married 15 months later in July 2000.

Their early marriage saw the various challenges that come with the military–transfers, long deployments, and little money. They were stationed for a time at Camp Pendleton, which was a big change for Lydia overall. Stephen thought about re-enlisting, but opted to come home to Texas. He was particularly motivated by what would make his wife happy.

When Stephen left the Marines in late 2001, he enrolled at Texas A&M University. They faced the same challenges young married college kids did—tight money, sleepless nights devoted to studying, and days spent jumping between jobs and school. Lydia worked in a medical office, and Stephen delivered pizza and worked for a drafting company.

When he graduated, Stephen took a job in the oilfields where he has worked since that time. His job required travel around the world and turnarounds of two to three weeks on followed by two to three weeks off. They decided to settle near Houston—close to her family, a few hours from his, and near a major airport.

Lydia was Southern, born and bred. Before the Marines, Stephen was loose about time. After the Marines, ten minutes early was five minutes late. Showing where the real power lay in the family, Stephen and Lydia never got anywhere before fifteen actual minutes late. Stephen spent plenty of days storming around and grousing, “I don’t know what she could possibly be doing. It takes her like two hours before she’s ever ready.”

And Lydia would hear him and holler, “Steeeeepppphheenn, I’ve told you a million times. It takes a bit for me to look like this. You don’t want me just going out in my bathrobe and curlers!”

Stephen would mumble to whoever was near, “As if those were the only options. It’s always like this. If it takes that long, start fifteen minutes earlier.”

“I heard that!” she’d yell.

In 2005, Lydia gave birth to William Stephen Laws (known as Will). His cousin Lindsay was born three weeks later. In visits early in their lives, they each had pacifiers. We walked in one day to see the two standing in the middle of the front room almost nose to nose, sizing each other up. Lindsay swatted Will’s face and knocked out his binky. He struck back and knocked out her binky. Tragic crying from both ensued.

In 2009, twins Eli and Emma followed in a medically complicated birth (both of them had placental abruptions that threatened both their lives and that of Lydia). The recovery was a grind, and Lydia had to deal with twice the hungry mouths.

Gradually, she recovered and found herself grappling with two infants, a 4-year-old, and a husband who was absent for work in two- to three-week increments. Through job changes, economic ups and downs, and the growth of her children, Lydia remained a bright, happy, and stabilizing force for her family. The kids had innumerable allergies, and she constantly juggled medications, doctor visits, and diet restrictions. For a while, about the only foods served at the house were grilled cheese sandwiches and cheese pizza. Through all of that, Lydia merchandised and sold a line of health care products. She developed a vast network, rose up in the company such that she was training dozens of others, and was regularly recognized for exceeding sales targets.

With the twins in high school, Lydia reentered the full-time workforce. With her former experience in medical offices, her sales experience, and her overall bright personality, she quickly caught on at a rehabilitative practice nearby. She started at the front desk but made a far greater impact. She reworked the practice’s scheduling to improve productivity, cut their accounts receivable backlogs through direct negotiations with insurance companies, and improved the bottom line so dramatically that she was quickly promoted. Then, a short time later, she was promoted again. She had been newly installed in a regional position and was traveling to visit one of the other regional offices when she was involved in the accident that took her from us.

Over the last few days, Stephen has told me almost daily that he called home every night when they were apart. Even if the conversations were short, they always had their call.

In July, most of the Laws made a trip to New Braunfels where my mother and sister live. My mother and sister had not yet met the wife of my oldest child and the husband of my oldest daughter. Stephen was on the rig, but Lydia brought the kids to hang out with us. We tubed the Comal River. We visited the Alamo. We ate Mexican food. We had barbecue. We got Mom’s old record player working and played some old records. My son Graham and their son Eli did a long run together. It was a sacred and happy time and one for which I will always be thankful.

It has been an excruciating time for all of us. Hard times are still ahead of us. The hurt from this will go on for the rest of our lives. Hearing recitations about the Plan of Salvation has been cold comfort to Stephen, me, and others. We know our doctrine, we’ve been through death before. We hurt right now deeply and for the foreseeable future.

But I want to say something that I at least find comforting. I want Stephen and his kids to know it. When John the Baptist placed his hands on the heads of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to restore the Aaronic Priesthood, he spoke these words: Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels.” He pronounced other keys as well, but I’m stopping at the first set of keys. Maybe we should consider them the most important since they were given first. What exactly are the keys of the ministering of angels?

Book of Mormon prophet Nephi said this: “Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ.” He later said, “for when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men.”

That which we frequently call inspiration or prompts and which we ascribe to the Holy Ghost is very often the ministering of angels. That is, the angels are nearby, they convey a message, and that message is carried to your heart by the Holy Ghost. Let me give you a personal example.

I was a bishop for six years early in our raising children. I counseled a woman who had suffered decades of guilt and pain over the drowning death of her son. I won’t describe the particulars of why she felt as she did, but I can tell you that the boy had saved another boy from drowning before he succumbed. As this sister and dear friend was speaking, I had the strongest feeling that her boy Benny was close by. I said to her this, “I feel so strongly impressed to tell you that Benny does not want you to live like this. He’s okay. And I also feel strongly impressed to tell you that ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’” She looked at me with wide eyes. “How could you know that?” she said.

“What’s that?” I said.

“That scripture. We put it on his headstone.”

I did not know that. But Benny did and the Lord did. I will not pretend that the moment solved all this sister’s pain—it didn’t. But it was a moment of grace through a journey of mourning.

I have had similar experiences related to my own family. When I was young, my sister did something wrong, my dad got after her, she got mad at him, said something rude, and stormed off to her room. I shrank deep into my chair, but my Dad glanced at me, winked, and said, “What’s the matter, son?” And I said, “I don’t know,” failing to confess my fears of what might happen. I thought my dad might get mad and punish Ruthanne further. But Dad then said, “Don’t you know, son, that one of the greatest joys in life is having your kids tell you how much they hate you?”

My dad died seventeen years ago in March. Lucia, who is with us today, was three years old, maybe just turned four. We had an above ground pool, and the kids swam in it almost every day that summer. One summer evening, she was goofing around and being unsafe, I scolded her and made her get out of the water, and I told her she had to sit on a chair near me in timeout. She glared at me, might have even stuck her tongue out at me. And then I felt my dad very, very close to me, and I felt his voice whisper, “Don’t you know, son, that one of the greatest joys in life is having your kids tell you how much they hate you?” And one of the things I understood about that moment was that it was something that in mortality he would not have seen because we lived 2000 miles apart. I would have preferred to have him back, but I cannot deny that small moment of grace.

In the days and years to come, you will have thoughts come to you in which you can feel your mother’s voice. Sometimes, it will be to comfort you, sometimes to caution you, sometimes to laugh with you. Those experiences are real. Write them down. Use the notes app in your phone. And if you need your Mom’s advice on something, talk to her. As President Joseph F. Smith said:

“Sometimes the Lord expands our vision from this point of view and this side of the veil, that we feel and seem to realize that we can look beyond the thin veil which separates us from that other sphere. … [And we would understand that] those who have passed beyond, can see more clearly through the veil back here to us than it is possible for us to see them from our sphere of action. I believe we move and have our being in the presence of heavenly messengers and of heavenly beings. We are not separate from them. We begin to realize more and more fully, as we become acquainted with the principles of the Gospel, as they have been revealed anew in this dispensation, that we are closely related to our kindred, to our ancestors, to our friends and associates and co-laborers who have preceded us into the spirit world. We can not forget them; we do not cease to love them; we always hold them in our hearts, in memory, and thus are associated and united to them by ties that we cannot break, that we cannot dissolve or free ourselves from.”

Kids, your mother devoted her life to you. I have no doubt that she will devote much of her afterlife to you. On October 21, after we had learned the news, after Stephen and I had talked several times, after I had told my kids, after I had cleared my work schedule, I went out to the woods behind our house to pray. I settled into a quiet spot to talk to the Lord. It wasn’t a good talk—it was full of rage and accusation, pain and frustration. In my mind and heart, I felt a voice whisper (and I wrote this down), “The eyes of the eternities are upon your family. Your father and generations back.” And I felt a distinct, inimitable voice say in a giant hick accent, “It’s not that big a deal, y’all. Goll!” Because she was self-effacing and didn’t love a big deal being made of her. And I could see her in my mind’s eye with a smile and with tears streaming down her face. And I said back, “It is a big deal. A very big deal to us.”

And for my own pain and rage and bewilderment and feeling of faithlessness, and for that of all of my devastated family on both sides of this marriage, I say, “Father, forgive us, for we know not what you do.”