Weldon Bosen Jolley

Weldon Bosen Jolley, 95, of Loma Linda, California passed away on June 14, 2022 of natural causes.
Weldon was born in Gunnison, Utah on September 8, 1926 to Edward McKinley “Mack” and Rosella Elvira Bosen Jolley. In his younger years, he served in the U.S. Navy at the end of World War ll, spent three years as a missionary in Brazil for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and earned academic degrees from Brigham Young University (B.S., 1952) and the University of Southern California (Ph.D., 1959). He married Dorathy Timms in the St. George, Utah temple in 1954 and raised three children. After Dorathy’s heart illness and death, Weldon married JoLane Laycock Slade in the Los Angeles temple in 1983 and helped raise her two young children.

Weldon was a medical research scientist, a pioneer in the transplantation of organs and the anti-rejection drugs necessary to tissue survival. His three hundred papers were published in over twenty-five medical journals; he lectured at medical conventions throughout the United States, Europe, South America and Australia. He was part of the famed “Baby Fae” baboon-to-human-heart team at Loma Linda University where he was director of surgical research. He was the founding president of the Nucleic Acid Research Institute, a joint venture of Eastman-Kodak and Orange County-based ICN Pharmaceuticals, where he was a long-time board member and, later, vice-president of development.
Weldon’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to additional business projects: establishing the American Security Bank, Life Resources (Sam Andy emergency food production), Wild Rivers water park, Golden Opportunities, CD-ROM West, and the Weldon B. Jolley Foundation. He holds several U.S. patents.

Always active in the LDS church, Weldon served as bishop, stake missionary, early morning seminary teacher (over twenty years!), stake patriarch, temple supervisor, recorder and sealer. He was a beloved speaker, giving numerous sermons for funerals, devotionals, graduations and Sunday worship services.

Weldon was deeply committed to his family and loved the family gatherings which often centered around the swimming pool with “Grandpa” in his barbecue apron. Family trips to the Utah relatives, to Yosemite, on the Sacramento River houseboat, to Hawaii, and to Angelus Oaks were favorites.

Weldon is survived by his wife JoLane; sister-in-law Mary Anne (Boyd) Jolley of American Fork, Utah; children Elizabeth Ann (Shawn) Price of Loma Linda; Kathleen (Lewis) Cope of Yucaipa; Phillip Timms (Ronda) Jolley of Loma Linda; Jessica (Scott) Jones of Chuckey, Tennessee, and Brian Lee (Kelly) Slade of Mooresville, North Carolina; 14 grandchildren (one granddaughter is deceased) and 17 great-grandchildren. A funeral service was held on June 29, 2022; interment followed at the Hillside Memorial Park in Redlands, California.