Barbara McMahan

On Jan. 9, 2017, Barbara Jean Handy McMahan, at the age of 89, passed away quietly due to complications with COPD. She was surrounded by family in her home in Mountain Home.

Barbara was born March 10, 1928, in Browns Valley, Calif., and lived out her childhood on the family dairy farm with her parents and six brothers and four sisters. She graduated from Marysville High School and later from beauty school, which lead her to Nevada City, Calif., where she worked as a beauty operator.

She met and married James McMahan on July 8, 1950. In 1953, they relocated their family of two daughters, Marsha and Sarah, to Foresthill, Calif., where she owned and operated her own beauty shop while Jim had an appliance shop.

She served her community with love and enthusiasm as a leader in the "Re-Beautification Project" of planting daffodils along the Foresthill Road and many more community events.

One of her great loves was the owning and working on the McMahan Choose and Cut Christmas Tree Farm that she and Jim ran together for many years in town. She also had a side business of making and selling beautiful live Christmas wreaths.

She was a 4-H leader and very active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which the whole family joined in April 1969. Barbara and Jim were sealed as husband and wife in the Oakland Temple on June 17, 1972.

She was proceeded in death by her husband, Jim, and her parents and all her brothers and sisters. But she leaves behind her daughters, Marsha McMahan Stowell (Gary) of Mountain Home and Sarah McMahan Christensen (Bruce) of McMinnville, Ore., 12 grandchildren, 25 great grandchildren with three great kids to be born this year and one beloved dog, Charlie.

A funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2017, at the Rost Funeral Home, McMurtrey Chapel, in Mountain Home with the burial to follow at 2 p.m. at the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery in Boise.