Alice E. DeLapp, 91

Alice E. DeLapp, 91, died July 23, 2006, at the ImmanueI Lutheran Home in Kalispell.

Alice Effie Schwinderman DeLapp was born Sept. 23, 1914, in Los Angeles, to Frederick Grover Schwinderman and Edith Dixon Schwinderman. Her father farmed and her mother was a schoolteacher. When Alice was a baby, the family moved to western Nebraska. When Alice was in her early teens, her parents separated, and Edith was left to raise three young girls during the Depression. Alice graduated from Omaha Technical High in 1933 and Wayne State University in 1931 with a bachelor's degree in education.

Alice married Wilbur Porterfield in 1935 and they moved to Portland in 1937. Alice taught in Portland and Heart Butte. They had a son, Charles Porterfield.

Alice married Daniel Salois, who had four children, in 1945, and moved to Coram, where Alice taught intermediate grades. They had a son, Chane Salois.

In 1949, Alice and her two sons moved to the Williston, N.D., area where she taught at two rural schools for a total of three years. She earned a Life Certificate in North Dakota.

In 1952, the family moved to Rexford, where Alice taught in the Rexford, Tooley Lake, and Eureka school systems.

In 1954, Alice married Arcy DeLapp, who had five children, with Farrell DeLapp still living at home.

Alice earned a master's degree in education in 1960 (remedial reading specialty) from the University of Montana. She retired in 1976 after 34 years of teaching, more than half of it teaching the primary grades.

Her interests included music, quilting (67 quilts after retiring), gardening, square dancing and travel.

She was active in the First Church of God in Eureka and the Eureka Senior Citizens.

In 1965, Alice and Arcy moved to Eureka. Her eldest son, Charles W. Porterfleld, Major in the U.S. Marine Corps, died as a jet pilot in Vietnam in 1968. Her husband of 13 years, Arcy, died in Eureka in 1969. Her youngest son, Chane W. Salois, is a civil engineer in Toppenish, Wash.

She moved to Buffalo Hill Terrace in 1995 and Immanuel Lutheran Home in 1997.

She was preceded in death by her father; mother; son, Charles; husband, Arcy; and four stepdaughters; and a stepsons-in-law, Tom Higle, and Les Smith.

She is survived by sisters, Betty and husband, Richard Miller, of Evening Shade, Ark., and Virginia Ganson of San Bernadino, Calif.; son, Chane Salois, and wife, Kathy, of Toppenish; stepson, Farrell DeLapp, and wife, Donna, of Garrison; stepdaughters, Phyllis Higle of Deer Lodge, and Beulah Smith of Spokane; and three grandsons, Marc Porterfield, Charles Salois and Jason Salois.

Memorial services will be held at 2 p.m. Aug. 18, at the First Church of God in Eureka with interment afterward at the Eureka Cemetery.

Local arrangements are by Nelson and Vial Funeral Home in Eureka.