Dora Dee Glazier Hemeyer

Cherished mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, sister and friend, Dora Dee Glazier Hemeyer, 84, passed away in Mesa, Arizona, on September 14, 2025.

The daughter of Leland Glazier and Mildred Vera Woodruff, she was born March 15, 1941 in Mesa. During her teenage years she participated in both high school and YMCA A Capella choirs and quartets. She performed throughout the entire Phoenix Valley. After graduating from Mesa High School in 1959, she then left Arizona to attend Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. At BYU, she pursued a degree in Home Economics but, music continued to be her passion. She sang with BYU’s A Capella Choir and the touring show choir under Janie Thompson’s direction.

Following her years at BYU she moved to Aurora, Colorado, where she met her future husband, US Air Force Academy cadet Karl P. Hemeyer, Jr. After Karl graduated, the two were married and lived in San Antonio, Texas and Selma, Alabama while stationed with the military. Following their military years, they moved their four children to Crystal Lake, Illinois. Serving her family and church tirelessly, the years flew by.

In 1986, Karl and Dee traded Illinois winters for Utah winters. One of the highlights of Dee’s life was singing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir from 1988-1998. To be able to sing with talented musicians who became lifelong friends was a dream come true. Singing and touring with choir member and older sister, Donna Dalton, was an added bonus. Tours and Christmas concerts with the choir were some of Dee’s favorite memories. Grandchildren were known to watch “Music and the Spoken Word” on Sunday mornings with the hope of spotting “Grammy” in the choir loft.

After three decades of shoveling snow, Karl convinced Dee it was time for more sunshine and they relocated to Las Vegas, NV for the majority of their retirement years. There she quickly made friends singing in the Desert Chorale and serving in the LDS Las Vegas Temple. She was delighted to spend the last four years of her life living back in Mesa, within in a few minutes of her three sons and their families. Her children and grandchildren love her fiercely because she is the one who taught them how to love.

People of all ages were drawn to Dee. Her gorgeous smile, infectious laugh, and generous love were magnetic. If anyone needed anything, she was the first person to jump up and offer to get it, even when she was 80 years old and sitting on the floor. Babies and children were her specialty and she lit up whenever one was nearby. Over the years she taught hundreds of children to sing while serving in Primary and volunteering in local schools. She was a voracious reader and talented seamstress. She enthusiastically attended grandchildren’s sporting events, recitals, concerts and graduations, willingly climbing on a plane and traveling hundreds of miles to be in the audience.

Dee was preceded in death by her beloved husband Karl, her parents, her sister Dorothy Skembo, and brothers-in-law, Michael Skembo, Charles Terry Graff and David Dalton.

She is survived by her children Adriane (Steven) Gill, Erik (Stacey) Hemeyer, Lex (Stacy) Hemeyer, and Van (Heidi) Hemeyer; 15 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren; her sisters Donna Dalton and Virginia Graff; sister-in-law Nancy Schultz; her brothers Bill (Millie) Glazier and Louis (Jeannie) Glazier, brother-in-law Mark (Billenda – ) Hemeyer and many nieces and nephews, as well as countless friends whose lives were brightened and enriched by her love and light.

Funeral services to celebrate Dee will be on Wednesday, September 24, 2025 at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints located at 2228 E. Brown Rd. Mesa, AZ.

A viewing will begin at 8:30 am with the funeral following at 9:30. Interment will be at the Mesa Cemetery.

Arrangements by Bunker’s University Chapel, www.bunkerfuneral.com. Should this obituary appear anywhere but bunkerfuneral.com, please check our website for accurate details and service information.