Crystal Leto

Crystal Leto, passed into the next life on January 1, 2023 at Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines of cancer that was found the previous day.

Crystal was an incredible woman. She was well educated, well read, and well spoken. She loved to learn and lose herself in books of both fiction and non-fiction. She journaled religiously for decades and thoroughly enjoyed writing both professionally and privately. Crystal also loved hiking through and exploring the National Parks across the country. She loved a little danger in her adventures and often sought trips that would push her mentally and physically. Her favorite hike was the Subway in Zion, followed closely by Angel's Landing.

Of all her great adventures, her most treasured was her family. As a child she was asked to draw a picture of what she wanted to be when she grew up and she drew herself and three children sitting at a dinner table, the caption beneath read "I want to be a mom." Crystal loved her husband John and children more than any of us may be able to understand. Throughout her journals she detailed the daily joys of being a mother to her daughters and showed constant gratitude for her role in their lives. She also spoke at length about the great love and admiration she held for her husband, John, in the face of great challenges, losses, and victories the two would face together. The only thing she may have loved more than the family she helped create was the families her children created. She adored Christopher and Mike, partners to two of her daughters, and her four grandchildren, who lovingly referred to her as "Llama" or "Llam Llam." She lived for stroking tiny cheeks and playing with tiny toes and singing lullabies to sleepy babies. She was an amazing mother, but she was an even more incredible Llam Llam.

Crystal's last years on Earth were marred by injury and illness that largely took her ability to live her life the way she always had. Her physical difficulties and insurmountable daily pain took a great toll on her mind and abilities. Her children ask that you remember her intelligence, her strength, her determination, her selflessness, and her capacity for love above all else. When someone struggles with chronic pain and chronic illness, it's easy for loved ones and healthcare workers to only see the pain and illness and lose sight of the person. Crystal could not stand without assistance at the end of her life, but for decades she summited mountains. She could not form a cohesive sentence in recent times, but she wrote articles and poetry and filled plastic tubs full of journals before she got sick. She was a woman that loved a man, a mother that read Edgar Allen Poe to her children at night, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, and a friend. She was ours.

Due to the recent passing of their father, John Leto, Crystal's children have chosen not to organize a Celebration of Life at this time.

Crystal was preceded in death by John Leto and her parents Rose and Gary Padgett. She is survived by her children Faith (Christopher) Cleaver, Alicia (Michael Manley) Leto, and Jessica Leto, her grandchildren John, Colton, Oliver, and Anthea, her siblings Cheryl (Wayne) Keeler, Denise Case, and Dan Padgett, and her beloved nieces and nephews Wilson (Brooke) Keeler, Victoria (Justin) Edwards, Wade Keeler, Courtney (Danny) Morris, and Megan Case, and all their children.