Lois Claire Kjelsrud, 79

Lois Claire Kjelsrud, 79, passed away Sunday morning, Nov. 21, 2004, at Kalispell Regional Medical Center.

"Mom" was born to Sam and Catherine Harris Oct. 11, 1925, in Judith Gap. She was delivered at home by her grandmother, Caroline Mundt. Her father, Sam, was employed by the Great Northern Railroad as a machinist. A few months after her birth they moved to Duluth, Minn., where they lived until she was 3, when Sam was transferred to Great Falls. They moved to East Glacier when she was 9, then back to Great Falls when she was 10. She remembered the snow piling as high as the roof of the house that winter in East Glacier. She would tell us of sledding off the roof of the house right on to the snow piled up there.

After graduating from Great Falls High School in 1943, she and Delores Philippi drove to San Diego where they went to work assembling 50-caliber machine guns. They returned to Great Falls, in 1944, and she went to work on Gore Hill driving a two and half ton truck. She also drove a 24-passenger bus and a wrecker. She had to look through the steering wheel to see where she was going because she was too short to see over the wheel. In order to back up she had to stand with one foot on the running board and one on the clutch. While working there she met Mavis Woodahl. She and Mavis would become lifelong friends exchanging many letters and later in life, e-mails.

She met the love of her life, Mel Kjelsrud, when she was 15 years old. When he returned from the war they were married. They lived in a small two-room house behind her parents' house while "Dad" built a basement house on a lot that they bought at 1425 Fourth Ave. S. They lived on her paycheck from the creamery she worked for and used Dad's to pay for the house.

About 1950 Dad built the brick house on top of the basement. They lived there until about 1960 when they bought the five acres on Wilkinson Lane and lived there until retiring to Mortimer Gulch on Gibson Reservoir in about 1980. About 1984, they built the house on the hill above Lakeside - "The Perfect Place," according to Mom, where she lived until her passing.

She was a secretary for the school district in Great Falls until she and Dad retired, making many friends among the students and teachers at the schools she worked in.

She summed up her life in one paragraph in an e-mail letter she wrote to her cousins, Gail and Sharon, shortly after finding out about the cancer spreading: "I must say that I have lived my life exactly as I wanted to and accomplished everything I set out to do. I wanted three boys and managed to raise them to be fine upstanding men that I am proud of. I married the guy I fell in love with when I was 15 and managed to live with for 55 great years. We never had a whole lot of money but were always happy."

Survivors include her sons, Tom and Ruth of Laurel, Chuck of Great Falls, and Jack of Somers; 11 grandchildren; 26 great-grandchildren; brothers, Roger, and Russell and Carol Harris of Great Falls; her special cousins in Great Falls, Gail, Evie, Gina, Joannie, Cleone, Sharon of Stanford, and her very good friend, Mavis Woodahl.

She also leaves Lexie, the German shepherd, she "saved" from the dog pound and who would become her special friend and companion.

There will be no funeral service per her request. Her ashes will be spread at the old cabin site in Mortimer Gulch some time in the future.

Johnson Mortuary and Crematory in Kalispell is handling arrangements.