Mary Rachel Wilhelm Luebben
1921 - 2010
It is with deepest sorrow the family of Mary Rachel Wilhelm Luebben announces her unexpected passing into the Church Triumphant on Aug. 12, from complications of heart surgery. Her last decision to bravely go forward with her heart surgery in hopes of regaining her dynamic productivity and life of active service to others was typical of her zest for living, her boundless faith in her Lord, and quiet and ever-enduring emotional strength in the face of adversity. Mary died as she had always lived, with courage, grit, integrity and unselfishness.
Mary’s memorial service at Redeemer Lutheran Church, Seal Beach, Calif., and funeral at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church, Long Beach, Calif., were held Aug. 28 and Sept. 11. Mary’s memorial and graveside committal services in Dillon are tentatively scheduled for late summer 2011, and will be announced in The Dillon Tribune.
In southwestern Montana, where she came as a bride in 1946, Mary found “her heart’s home”. She frequently remarked that her husband, Dougan Luebben, had given her the two greatest sources of joy in her life, aside from her faith, Montana and her children.
Dillon and its surrounding lands became Mary Rachel’s “Promised Land”, and she loved it with a passion that she never lost. There was never any doubt in her mind that her final resting place should be in Beaverhead County’s Mountain View Cemetery, overlooked by her beloved Mount Baldy and close by to her Luebben in-laws and her first child, Dougan, whom she lost in 1951.
Mary Rachel Wilhelm was born in Kansas City, Mo., on May 22, 1921, the second child of Frances E. Wilhelm, M.D., and Leona Marguerite Smith Wilhelm, a banker’s daughter.
From her mother and her mother’s mother, Mary learned southern cooking and southern graces, although she also had a rebel streak of adventurous spirit.
Mary contracted rheumatic fever and subsequently endocarditis in early childhood. These nearly took her life and severely limited her activities for the rest of her childhood and teenage years, as well as later preventing her from becoming a W.A.V.E. officer in the U.S. Navy. Those limited and limiting years made a deep impact on Mary; when she recovered, she cherished her reclaimed new life with a dauntless courage, strong-mindedness, and gutsy spirit of adventure which she never relinquished.
Mary Rachel graduated as a Sachem from Southwest High School, Kansas City, Mo. During high school, she learned to adore football, was finally allowed to dance, and rode herd on her uncle’s Hereford cattle ranch in northern Missouri. From childhood, Mary played piano throughout her life, right up to and on the day before her last surgery.
Mary attended Stephen’s College, an all-girls Baptist institution in Columbia, Mo. She emerged with an A.A., a deeper level of pleasure and expertise in horseback riding, memories of a young cadet from Dillon, Montana, she met at a dance at Kemper Military Academy, and a wanderlust to leave her home state and see some new territory.
She adventurously enrolled in the then-newest University of California campus, in Westwood, to become an ardent UCLA Bruin, a loyalty and fervency which she maintained to the present, especially for the blue and gold on the gridiron.
The senior year of her B.A. in political science and personnel administration included the added challenge of dorm blackouts and studying in the halls, as the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred the December before her graduation.
Her final undergraduate semester was significantly shortened to free the male graduates for the Armed Services. Mary stayed on at UCLA for graduate school, with an eye to entering the diplomatic service. Personal and world events intervened before she could finish her master’s degree, as her father’s increasing ill-health, and the nation’s escalating involvement in WW II, brought Mary back to Kansas City.
With the urging and proud support of her father, whom she soon lost, she enlisted as a Marine on the Corps birthday, Nov. 10, 1943.
Corporal Wilhelm twice passed up O.C.S. to remain for the duration of the war in the personnel duties she loved at Camp LeJeune, N.C. Mary’s life truly typified “once a Marine, always a Marine”, and the Marine motto is her epitaph, as well as her legacy to her family, friends and fellow-volunteers. Mary was, on so many levels, “Semper Fi”, “Always Faithful”.
During the course of the war, Mary remained in contact with the Kemper cadet whom she had met while at Stephen’s College, Dougan C. H. Luebben, who had become a Warrant Officer in the Army Air Corps.
Once the War ended, as with so many other couples, their romance blossomed, and on the Oct. 5, 1946 they were married in Grace and Holy Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Kansas City, Mo., and drove off for a new life together at 514 South Pacific, Dillon.
Within the year, Mary was confirmed at St. James’ Episcopal Church, where her husband had been baptized and confirmed, and her two oldest daughters would be baptized.
The Luebben Plumbing and Heating Business in Dillon, run by Mary’s father-in-law, Thomas E. Luebben, her husband and his uncle, provided Mary also with employment, and she worked there through her first three pregnancies, one son and two daughters, their third daughter was born in Havre.
Dougan finished his degree and teaching credential at the then-Western Montana College, and when they closed the family plumbing business after the deaths of Dougan’s father, Thomas and uncle, Ernest, the Luebben family began to move around in Montana as Dougan found teaching jobs.
The family moved again in 1962 to Los Alamitos in Orange County, Calif., which remained Mary’s home for the rest of her life, with close ties and frequent visits back to Dillon.
During her last stay, Mary was the WW II Veteran speaker at the 2008 Memorial Day observance at the Dillon's Veterans' Memorial ceremony, at which her daughter, Nancy, was master of ceremonies, and sang the National Anthem.
Mary immersed herself in volunteer and church activities, both in leadership and in behind the scenes work, always in support of her own children, but also of other youth and many philanthropies and charities.
She was a longtime and active member of P.T.[S.]A. throughout her own children’s schooling and far beyond; was president at two different levels, and earned the honorary service award for meritorious service.
She led and worked in various Brownie and Girl Scout troops, as well as in the Episcopal Girls’ Friendly Society. Her volunteer work spanned her entire adult life, and reads like an honor roll of love shared including, among many others, such varied activities as the Women’s Opportunity Center at U.C. Irvine, more than 40 years as a precinct election worker, the Los Alamitos Museum, the ASPCA, Guide Dog Boosters, the Long Beach Memorial Hospital Auxiliary, the Beaverhead County Museum, D.A.R., P.E.O. for more than 60 years in Chapter AD in Dillon, and in Chapters NZ and OL in Long Beach, Calif., of which she was chapter president four times, and president of the Long Beach Reciprocity Bureau of P.E.O., Job’s Daughters, girls’ softball, band boosters at two schools, roommother for numerous classrooms, the Cancer Society, the Alzheimer Association, the co-founder of the Feed My Lambs Program for the homeless and elderly, and charter supporter of two Blessings of the Animals, football boosters, school volunteer, the National Wildlife Federation, the UCLA Bruin Alumni Association, the San Diego Zoological Society, the Santa Barbara Zoological Society, the Audubon Society, church guilds, Indian schools, the Billy Graham Foundation, Junior Navy R.O.T.C., the Women Marines Association, the American Legion in St. Louis, Mo., and for more than 60 years, the American Legion Auxiliary in Dillon. These are only some avenues through which Mary helped and supported others. Many of the ways she served and assisted were anonymous, quietly done, and unrecognized but significant and powerful in their impact. These were ever-typical of Mary’s life’s credo, in small and in great things, see what needs to be done, and help. She never sought the limelight, and she never was afraid to get her hands dirty in a good cause. If someone genuinely needed help, she would never say no.
As well as a devoted wife, mother, grandmother and volunteer, Mary was an avid reader, particularly of biographies, and world traveler from her first journey to Europe with her family in 1930. The experiences gained on this and subsequent Wilhelm family sojourns all over the U.S., Canada, Mexico, England and the continent, catalyzed Mary’s lifelong love of travel, which she shared with and imparted to her husband, daughters and grandchildren.
She was proud that she had visited all fifty states and traveled to every continent but Antarctica.
Mary was preceded in death by her parents and her only sibling, Granville S. Wilhelm, as well as her son, Dougan Luebben.
She is survived by her husband, Dougan Luebben, native of Dillon, now of Anaheim, Calif.; her sister-in-law, Virginia Wilhelm; her only niece, Connie Wilhelm Lovette; and her first cousins, Deborah Smith Allen, Mary Susan and Sally Smith, Melissa Smith Elliott, and The Rev. Ron Smith; and her three dogs, Peyton, Charis and Luke.
Her living legacy of love and faith are her three daughters and their families, Mary Frances Luebben-Morgan and her husband, R. Scott Morgan, Nancy C. Luebben and her fiance, Bruce Young, all of Los Alamitos, Calif., and Lisa Ann Luebben-Rivera and her husband, Edgar Luebben-Rivera, of Orange, Calif.; as well as Mary’s three grandchildren, David Luebben-Morrill, Gabriel Luebben-Rivera and Amy Luebben-Rivera.
What Mary has done for her family, as well as the difference she has made in the lives of countless others including her many friends in Dillon is a resounding testament to how well she lived her life, and how she will be remembered.
Memorial donations in Mary’s honour may be made to The Humane Society of Beaverhead County, 34 Lagoon Lane, Dillon, MT., 59725; St. James Episcopal Church, 203 E. Glendale, Dillon, MT., 59725; or The Fallen Warriors Scholarship Fund, Women Marines Association, P.O. Box 377, Oaks, PA., 19456-0377.
Paid obituary.
James Louis and Mary Hester Kurtz
1914 - 2010 and 1914 - 2006
onth when James Louis Kurtz, the last of six Kurtz brothers, passed away peacefully in Dillon where he and his brothers began nearly a century ago in a dirt floor log cabin homestead on Smith Lane. His wife preceded him in death in 2006. This joint obituary remembers the lives of Mary Hester Decker Kurtz and James Louis Kurtz.
Passed away is Mary Hester Decker Kurtz on March 25, 2006, in Roseville, Calif., and James Louis Kurtz on Dec. 2, 2010, in Dillon.
They are survived by a son, James Roger Kurtz, and his wife, Jeanne Cannon Kurtz, Dillon; two grandsons, Kreg Kurtz, Virginia, son of Bruce Kurtz, and William Richardson and his wife Kate, California, son of Jeanne Kurtz by a previous marriage; two great-grandchildren, Stephanie and Will Richardson; and various Andrus, Jones, Schaffner, Decker and Scott cousins. Bruce Kurtz died March 22, 2003.
Mary Hester was known as a high spirited red-head of many opinions, with numerous hobbies, and for a strong dedication to exellence in everything she did. Jim could be a prankster on certain occasions, but was strongly committed to high standards of personal conduct and gentlemanly behavior. He loved to laugh and have a grilled steak after a few Ancient Age cocktails. Both dedicated their lives to improving public education of children, and lived energetically, sharing richly with others.
Jim and Mary Hester were born six days apart, and raised in Dillon. Mary Hester was born March 13, 1914, to Blanche Hall and Glen A. Decker, in Armstead. She had two brothers and one sister, Clarence, Paul and Margie, all deceased.
Jim was born March 7, 1914, to Bertha M. Fjelsted and Oliver B. Kurtz, on the homestead on Smith Lane. He had five brothers, Ollie, Norman, Lester, Frank and George, all deceased.
Jim and Mary Hester went to Dillon schools through normal school, and began dating the end of their senior year, and pursued lifetime careers in public school teaching and in administration. James and Mary Hester were married in Dillon in 1935, at Mary's parents home.
Jim's first teaching job was as a teaching principal in Cardwell, in an elementary school that still stands. His salary was $900 a year. They lived in a small converted attic above a market and post office in Jefferson Island. Mary Hester's first job was on the Hall Ranch in Ennis where she taught the rancher's only daughter.
Jim's next job was as principal of the Longfellow School in Bozeman, where they lived for eight years. Mary Hester stayed at home, giving birth to and raising Roger and Bruce.
They returned to Dillon where Mary Hester taught kindergarten after the boys started school, and Jim taught fifth grade. The family lived on Madison Lane, now Madison Street.
Jim was very proud that four Kurtz brothers served in WWII, and all returned.
Jim served in the Navy on a Pacific troop transport ship, returning to his family in 1946. Jim used his GI benefits to obtain an advanced degree in education at Stanford University, and brought his family to Palo Alto, Calif., on the San Francisco Bay peninsula after obtaining a position as principal of Willow Elementary School in Menlo Park in 1950.
Mary Hester returned to being a homemaker as they settled into their new adventure in California. She later obtained her California teaching credentials at San Jose State College, and returned to teaching.
At one point Mary Hester, Jim, and both sons, were in college at the same time as Jim continued to take classes at Stanford.
Mary Hester taught kindergarten and first grade at nearby Los Altos Santa Rita Elementary School for many years. She generously shared her lesson plans and teaching techniques with the growing numbers of new teachers. In 1973, Jim and Mary Hester retired with a combined 62 years of successful work in public schools.
After retirement, Jim and Mary Hester enjoyed a brief period of traveling, including a USA trailer trip with relatives Helen and Harry Andrus of Dillon, and a trip to central Mexico where Jeanne's parents were living.
They settled back down to a quiet life in their Palo Alto home. Jim raised vegetables, worked in a sandwich delivery business, including food and drink deliveries to the XIX Super Bowl press boxes in the Stanford University stadium.
Mary Hester pursued her life long joy of playing the piano and organ, jewelry crafts, geneaology, and joined a writing club, writing many witty stories about her life, including a wonderful remembrance entitled "Life in the Past Lane". She was an active member of the Palo Alto PEO, and belonged to the Episcopal Church.
Throughout the years, they hosted several reunions of brothers, and many visits by other relatives and friends. Their home was always a place of warmth and security, and many extended family members considered Jim and Mary a primary source of advice and help when needed. They were generous hosts always, and a fun time was sure to be had.
Both entered their elder years in good health and financial comfort, moving to Auburn, Calif., to be near their son Roger, and his family.
They lived happily in assisted living lodging, and celebrated their 90th birthdays with a large family reunion in Auburn. Mary Hester said she had so much fun that she was going to live to be 100. However, she passed away March 25, 2006, after a fall and broken hip.
Jim returned to Dillon, where he and his son and daughter-in-law built the "Homestead", at 1225 Eliason Lane, to preserve past and future family history. This project culminated with a rendezvous of 75 members of the many family branches, and friends of the heart, this past July, and will be repeated in years to come.
The Homestead is a gathering place for numerous family and community events.
Jim passed away peacefully this month, contented that he had achieved his life goals, and that Roger and Jeanne will continue his belief in the importance of keeping family and friends in loving touch with each other.
James and Mary Hester will be buried at the same time, in the Kurtz plot, at the Mountain View Cemetery sometime next year when weather will permit members of the family, and friends, to attend a celebration of their lives.
Paid obituary.
Dr. Earl Henry Stevens
1920 - 2010
Dr. Earl Henry Stevens, age 90, passed away at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Miles City on Dec. 3, from natural causes. He was born May 24, 1920, in Miller, Neb., to Elmer T. and Hazel Belle (White) Stevens Pollock.
Earl met and married Lucy Eileen Estabrook on April 27, 1942 in Bryon, Texas. Earl attended Texas A&M, graduated in 1943, and had multiple college courses through extension services to further his education. After graduation from college, Earl joined the United States Air Force in 1943. He earned his professional degree as a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine where he worked as a veterinarian while serving.
Earl retired with honors in 1965 as Lt. Col., after serving 22 years. He later was employed as a state meat inspector in 1965, and in 1967 worked as a federal meat inspector until his retirement in 1981.
Earl had many hobbies. He was a lifelong Mason with the Masonic Lodge, a leather crafter and dabbled in ceramics. He was a very talented gardener, and became a Certified Master Gardener in 1991. Earl also was an active member of the senior citizens center in Sequim, Wash., and was a deacon and elder within the Christian Church where he also taught Sunday school. Earl also volunteered as an adult leader for the Cub Scouts for many years.
Earl was preceded in death by his wife of 65 years, Lucy; his parents; and a grandchild, Diane Stevens.
He is survived by his children, Earl H. (Vivien) Stevens, II, of Las Cruses, N.M., Michael Stevens, Mesa, Ariz., Patrick (Tammy) Stevens, Wilmington, N.C., Susan (Doug) Brown, Helena, Sylvia Stevens (Stan Strom), Helena, and Rachel (Eliud) Alayon, Hialeah, Fla. He is also survived by seven grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
A graveside service with military honors was held at 1:30 p.m., Friday, Dec. 10, at the Montana State Veterans Cemetery at Fort Harrison.
Local arrangements were in the care of Retz Funeral Home.
To offer a condolence to the family or to share a memory of Earl, please visit www.retzfuneralhome.com.
Richard R. Johnson
1936 - 2010
Richard (Dick) R. Johnson, of Dillon, passed away from pulmonary fibrosis in Dillon at Barrett Memorial Hospital on Dec. 8, at the age of 74. He was a beloved husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, brother and uncle.
Dick was born July 19, 1936, in Des Moines, Iowa, and was the son of Lester and Lucille Arnold.
While living in Des Moines, he worked for Firestone Tire and Rubber. He was drafted into the U.S. Army where he served two years in Germany as a medic. After being honorably discharged from the Army, he continued working for Firestone. His job eventually took him to Salinas, Calif., where he was a manager in the company and worked for over 20 years, but more importantly where he met his wife Betty (Henrie) Johnson, originally from Dillon.
Dick and Betty were married Jan. 15, 1967. With their marriage and subsequent children, they became a blended family of six children. When the Firestone plant in Salinas closed, the family returned to Betty’s hometown of Dillon, where he continued to provide for his family working at Barrett’s Minerals.
Dick enjoyed a variety of outdoor activities, especially snowmobiling and four-wheeling. He always enjoyed spending time with friends and family. There was always room at his home for family and friends to get together with games and fun. It was always amazing how Dick could go to bed and sleep with a large group of people loudly playing games, yelling and having fun.
Dick was preceded in death by his parents, Lucille and Lester Arnold; his daughter, Karen (Johnson) Freeman; and brothers-in-law, Warren Henrie and Ike Hansen.
He is survived by his wife, Betty Johnson; children, Ronald Johnson and wife Gina, Redding , Calif., Warren Denny, Forsyth, David Denny, Dillon, Dale Johnson, wife Janella, Livingston, and Cassie (Johnson) and John Cornia, Dillon; sisters, Sally Hansen, Des Moines, Iowa, Janice Burns, Blue Springs, Mo., Joyce Hamlet and husband Bill, Berthoud, Co., Judy Arnold, Beaver Dam, Wis., and Cheryl and Mike Giudicessi, Des Moines, Iowa; 15 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Services were Tuesday, Dec. 14, at Brundage Funeral Home. Visitation was held from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.
The funeral was held at 2 p.m., immediately followed by a graveside service and reception at the LDS church.
Memorials in Dick’s honor may be made to the Montana Snowmobile Association, Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation or the Blue Ribbon Coalition.
A guestbook is available at www.brundagefuneralhome.com.
Posts
