Monica Marlene de Ruyter

Monica Marlene de Ruyter, our daughter, sister, aunt and friend left life on this earth Tuesday, December 23, 2025, after complications from her battle with cancer.

Monica was born on July 17, 1968, in Oakland, California, the fourth child of Kitty and Robert de Ruyter.  She spent most of her youth in the California Bay Area where she enjoyed playing volleyball and participating in Oakland Temple Pageants.  Monica had a beautiful singing voice which allowed her to fully participate in musical theater productions, Church productions and many choirs that took her across the country to preform, her favorite choral concert was one she performed in Washington, D.C.  with the Pleasant Grove High School Choir.  She attended Castro Valley High School in California for three years and graduated from Pleasant Grove High School in Utah then went on to study travel and tourism at Salt Lake Community College.

Monica served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Urbana, Illinois, where she fell in love with the storied past of Nauvoo, especially the Nauvoo Temple.  Monica spent many years working in the mortgage and banking industry where she loved helping many achieve the dream of homeownership and working with supportive teams of people; friends who became like family.  She moved to Atlanta, Georgia, to further her career and adjusted to the warm, friendly, comfortable feel of the South.

Monica loved her extended family and she loved the people she worked with—but she was especially blessed to find true love and happiness when she met Lazaro Gonzalez, her partner and strength for the last nine years of her life.  Monica loved being a “dog mom”, first to her beloved Pomeranian, Spencer, and then to Junior, her English Bulldog; she truly spoiled and doted on her fur-babies.  Monica sought opportunities to support and reach out to others, she had a zest for life, she loved adventures and travel.  Monica was a wonderful partner, daughter, sister, aunt, and friend throughout her life—even on the very last day.  Monica will be missed greatly by all who knew her.  A void will always be felt by Monica’s untimely and unexpected absence.  Monica was a wonderful daughter to Kitty and Robert de Ruyter and a step-daughter to Paul Bons.  Monica was a sister to Scott, Erica, and Rick.  Monica felt privileged to be an Aunt to twenty-one nieces and nephews, and many great nieces and nephews.  Monica was preceded in death by her Daddy Robert de Ruyter, brother Rick, brother-in-law W. Keith Burden, nephews Robert A. de Ruyter, Richard John Andrew de Ruyter II, and her honorary grandmother “Schwabbie”. 

A memorial and celebration of Monica’s life will be held in Centerville, Utah on Saturday, February, 14, 2026 at 11:00 A.M. at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints chapel at 251 East 1825 North, Centerville, Utah.

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