Evelyn Lillian Gillespie, 66

Evelyn Lillian Gillespie, 66, passed away on Thursday, March 28, 2013, at Kalispell Regional Medical Center in Kalispell.

She was born Feb. 26, 1947, to Harry Logan Smith Sr. and Evelyn Lillian Smith in Newark, N.J. She led a fairly normal life of a child of the era, and was a noted tomboy who played more with the boys and their sports-centered things than with the girls she knew.

As a teenager she took pride in the fact she excelled in school, and would later talk at length about her service as a candy striper at a local hospital run by nuns. From those experiences she would tell everyone that “Nuclear plants would be just fine if they let the nuns run them.”

After high school she joined the U.S. Air Force and excelled again in her endeavor there. Called before her superiors to answer why her barracks was always on parade grounds on time for morning services — something purposefully designed to be nearly impossible — she explained how she had organized the girls so they could get through showers and dressed in record time, which stunned the officers.

She wound up in charge of a decoding unit charged with receiving and dispersing all communications to the mainland from Vietnam. This required a very high security level, and during the background checks the FBI told her mother that they were stopping the investigation early because they were scaring her friends. Not one ever asked “What did she do?” but rather “What happened to her ... Is she all right?”

She did her best to get her “wings,” passing and, as usual, excelling in every pilot qualification, except for gender. She even went so far as to talk a male airman friend with the same last name and initials to take the physical for her. It got her in a little trouble but it passed without incident.

She married Dan Looney while in the Air Force and stationed in Texas (which she hated with a passion) and they ended up blessed with two wonderful children, Heather, her first, followed by Patrick.

She and Dan lived in the East for a while, but moved here to Kalispell in 1972 and began a whole new life. They opened a welding shop and became well known and liked by many of the loggers locally. After a divorce in the ‘80s, she went on as a single mom for several years with plenty of trials on hand at any time.

She met Dan Gillespie at Finnegan’s Restaurant where she was working night shifts and he would stop for coffee in the morning after his work. Long story short, the relationship endured and they married in 1991. In 1992 they bought a small acreage farm by the airport so they could watch the planes. They added animals until the place looked like the bill of lading for Noah’s Ark. She was later able to return to school and was very proud of her Bachelor of Arts degree in botany. She was living the life she had always wanted and was very happy.

She could fly an airplane, plant a tree, nurse a sick goat back to health, talk politics with logic, be a friend, chew you out when she thought it was needed, raise children, and discuss Scripture. All in all, Evelyn was an exceptional person who will be sorely missed by all who knew her.

Evelyn was preceded in death by her parents.

She is survived by her husband, Dan Gillespie; a daughter, Heather Looney, and husband, Thomas Sly; a son, Patrick Brodeur; and her brother, Harry Logan Smith Jr., and his wife, Diane.

Funeral services for Evelyn will be held at 1 p.m. on Thursday, April 4, in the Johnson-Gloschat Funeral Home. Burial will follow at the C.E. Conrad Memorial Cemetery with military honors.

Johnson-Gloschat Funeral Home is caring for Evelyn’s family. You are invited to www.jgfuneralhome.com to view Evelyn’s tribute wall, offer condolences and share memories.