It is not surprising to anyone who knew her that Karen Haight Huntsman’s superpowers were determination, discipline and energy.

After all, there is no other way to explain how Huntsman managed to rear nine children while partnering with her husband, billionaire Jon Huntsman Sr. (who died in 2018), on business ventures and philanthropy. All this, while also sitting on numerous boards and organizing lively festivities for her 56 grandchildren and endlessly multiplying great-grandchildren.

The slender matriarch, who died at home in Salt Lake City on Monday from complications of cancer at 88, loved to exercise, particularly doing Pilates and core exercise with a group of women over 70, says son Paul Huntsman.

“Just last month,” the former Salt Lake Tribune owner says, “after four weeks in intensive care for complications related to chemotherapy, she did a one-minute plank for the doctors, as she left her room in a wheelchair.”

University of Utah President Taylor Randall said in a statement that Huntsman “lived a life defined by compassion, generosity, and an unwavering belief in the power of healing and hope,” working alongside her late husband and her family to help “build one of the great philanthropic legacies in our nation’s history.”

In 1995, the Huntsmans founded the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the U.

“Karen and Jon Huntsman were an unmatched pair of visionaries, equally committed to innovation, advancing research, caring for patients, and strengthening their community,” Randall said. “Together, they dedicated their lives to defeating cancer and reminded us that mental illness touches every person and every family in some way.”

In 2019, the Huntsman family committed $150 million to establish the Huntsman Mental Health Institute, the school said, “which is improving mental health resources for students and employees on the campus and throughout the community, including rural areas of the state.”

Unconditional love

Huntsman was unstoppable in her unconditional love of family, says daughter Christena Durham. “She had a close relationship with each of her children, no matter where they were in relationship to [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints].

As the daughter of a Latter-day Saint apostle, Huntsman’s faith was “fervent” and unwavering, Durham says, and it was “big enough” that she believed everyone would be with her in the eternities.

Huntsman faced challenges, the daughter says, like having a child with special needs, one who was kidnapped, one who wrestled with addiction and mental health, and one who sued the church Huntsman loved.

Durham says her calm mother’s response was always, “We’ll get through this.”

Young Karen, the daughter of future apostle David B. Haight and his wife, Ruby, spent much of her childhood in Palo Alto, California. She then moved to the Beehive State and attended the U., where she joined the Chi Omega sorority and became active in student affairs.

She left during her junior year to marry Jon M. Huntsman Sr., a dashing and ambitious Navy officer who had recently graduated from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania.

He proposed during the Christmas break of his senior year, using money he won during a poker game to buy her a diamond. They married in June 1959.

The couple then embarked on a lifetime of building a large family and the Huntsman Foundation, which supports cancer research; mental health treatment and research; public and higher education; and the underserved.

“It was important for my mother and my father to do something bigger than themselves,” her son David Huntsman told the U. “They always wanted to be engaged and involved in ways that contributed to the community.”

Durham and her sister, Jennifer Parkin, added: “We learned from our mother what strength, determination, and integrity is. She was dauntless in her pursuits and passions while still supporting her husband and our family.”

Family COO

Huntsman was the “chief operating officer of the noise and chaos of our family,” former Utah Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. said in a video at the time his mother received an honorary degree from the U.

Her level of “passion and drive” is impressive, Jon Jr. says. “If something is worth pursuing, nothing is going to stop her.”

And she was dedicated in her care for her youngest son, Mark (“Markie”), who suffered brain damage at birth.

“Everyone [knows] and [loves] Mark,” says Paul Huntsman, “and that was solely due to 15-plus years of hard work from my mother to get him to smile, say hello, give a hug, and not throw a scene in public.”

Huntsman is survived by her children Jon Jr., Peter, Christena, David, Paul, James, Jennifer and Mark. Her daughter Kathleen died in 2010.

The family has shared “messages of solemn gratitude for the work of relieving the suffering of others that we will continue to do under Jon and Karen Huntsman’s name,” a spokesperson says. “More details about future memorials and remembrances will be forthcoming.”