Our dear mother, grandmother, great grandmother, great-great grandmother passed from this life at Faith Lutheran Home in Wolf Point on Saturday, March 26, 2011. Her daughter was at her side.
Faye Marie Gidley Heser was born in Kansas, to Ella Forman and James W. Gidley on September 28, 1911. She had two brothers and was the eldest of three sisters. At the age of three, Faye’s family moved to a Montana homestead south of Brockton, in the Charlie Creek Community. Here she spent her youth.
While at a country dance Faye met Frank Heser. They were married December 28, 1936. Faye had a true pioneering woman’s spirit. Living in the Sunnyside Community south of Wolf Point, she nurtured her five children without benefit of indoor plumbing and for many years without electricity. Water was caught at the corner of the house in a rain barrel and heated on a wood-burning kitchen stove for bathing and laundry. Faye gathered wild berries for her delicious jams and planted, picked and preserved produce from her garden to feed her family. As a farmwife she raised chickens and delivered fresh eggs to her customers in town. In late summer she butchered and canned chickens but in later years was able to freeze the meat.
Faye was blessed with good health. She retained her hearing, vision and memory throughout her long life, six months shy of 100 years!
A kind and caring person, Faye was an accepting and content woman, rarely complaining and making the best of every situation. The family worshiped faithfully at the Immmaculate Conception Church in Wolf Point and later at St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Vida.
Faye was preceded in death by her parents, brother John, 3 great grandchildren and husband Frank. Surviving are her five children: daughters Ella Mae Stolen and Betty Moore, and sons Lloyd Heser, Kenneth (Agnes) Heser all of Wolf Point, and Floyd (Joan) Heser of Billings. She leaves 21grandchildren, 53 great-grandchildren, 32 great-great grandchildren and 11 great-great-great grandchildren. Her brother James (Rose) of Moore, MT, and sisters Marie Shefelbine of Circle, Thelma Huso of Glasgow, and Alice Olson of Toledo, Oregon, and brother in law Don Heser of Kasson, Minnesota also survive her.
Blessed be the memory of this resilient, reserved, wise and strong woman.
Visitation will be held from 2 p.m. until 6 p.m. Friday, April 1 at Clayton Stevenson Memorial Chapel in Wolf Point with a Vigil Service at 5 p.m. Mass of Christian Burial will be 10 a.m. Saturday, April 2 at St Ann’s Catholic Church in Vida with Fr. Jolly Pathiyamoola as celebrant. Interment will follow the luncheon at Sacred Heart Cemetery, Riverside, MT.
Condolences may be sent to the family at csmc@nemont.net or www.stevensonandsons.com. Clayton Stevenson Memorial Chapel of Wolf Point has been entrusted with the arrangements.