Joseph John Ries, 91

On Monday, Aug. 29, 2022, at 11:27 p.m., Joseph John Ries, 91 years old, passed away peacefully of natural causes at the BeeHive assisted living facility in Kalispell.

Joe was born March 16, 1931, in Iowa City, Iowa, to Bertha Kollman Ries and Joseph Elzear Ries. Thus began Joe’s life of adventure and love of the outdoors. His early years were spent ice skating, bird hunting, and golfing with his dad. He learned his love of music from his mom. During his teen years he enjoyed sailing at Door County on the Wisconsin upper peninsula. He helped his father at the Ries Book Store, which was also the bookstore for the University of Iowa at that time. Joe graduated from the University of Iowa with a bachelor’s degree in business. During his college years he began skiing and mountain climbing with the Iowa Mountaineers. In fact, his club hosted Warren Miller, of ski movie fame, back in the 1950s before Warren became famous. Joe also loved canoeing and would frequently get up to canoe in the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota. A memorable trip during his time with the Iowa Mountaineers was a trip to the Bugaboo Mountains in British Columbia. He learned many of his hiking songs, which his children frequently heard on his later hikes with them, while with the Mountaineers. After college he entered a Benedictine monastery in Canyon City, Colorado, for five years. Before final vows, the future father of six children changed direction and chose not to become a Catholic priest. He then took a job with the Food and Drug Administration in Denver. He joined the Colorado Mountaineers and enjoyed many climbing expeditions and adventures during his years with them. Later he returned for graduate school to study archaeology and anthropology in the late 1950s. He spent a solitary summer manning a remote fire lookout outside of Stanley, Idaho, in the Sawtooth Mountains. He joined the National Park Service in 1962 and was assigned to Kings Mountain National Military Park in South Carolina. He met the future love of his life, Ellen Burke, at a church choir practice in 1963. In 1964, Joe spent eight weeks with the Colorado Mountaineers climbing peaks in Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Austria. A few of the mountains they climbed were the Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, and the Dolomites in Italy.

Dec. 18, 1965, he married Ellen Burke Ries at Christ the King church in Kings Mountain, North Carolina, where they had met two years earlier. During the spring of 1967, Joe and Ellen were transferred to St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands National Park. They sailed, snorkeled, danced, and loved their two years in paradise. Joe was transferred in the spring of 1969 to Glacier National Park as the subdistrict ranger for Many Glacier, Belly River and Goat Haunt. Their first child, John, was born in Cardston, Alberta, where the nearest hospital was located. Joe questioned his decision to move north when he was standing on the bitterly cold and windswept frozen Waterton Lake that winter during a mission to rescue missing mountain climbers. By next fall, the family had moved to Polebridge, on the west side of Glacier Park, where their second child, Elizabeth, was born in the fall. The next year, the family was transferred to St. Mary, where sons Justin and Matthew would also be born in Canada. In 1973, the family spent six weeks traveling through the Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Germany and Switzerland. In 1975, Joe was transferred to East Glacier National Park, where he became the subdistrict ranger for the Two Medicine and Cut Bank valleys. The family would live during the summers in Two Medicine and spend the winters in East Glacier on the Blackfeet Reservation where the oldest children attended school. During these years, the fifth and sixth children, Mary and Margaret, were born in Kalispell. In the fall of 1980, Joe and Ellen bought a house in Kalispell so the children could attend school there. Joe continued to work at the ranger station in East Glacier during the winter months and commute home to Kalispell on his days off. The whole family would spend their summers in Two Medicine together. Joe retired from the Park Service in 1995.

Not wanting to be a retiree who focused on lawn maintenance to keep busy, Joe promptly applied to the Peace Corps and received a position with an environmental agency in Falmouth, Jamaica, just a few miles from Montego Bay where Ellen and he had spent their honeymoon. After that stint, Joe and Ellen enjoyed many more trips and adventures together. They loved spending time with their six children and their families, which includes 19 grandchildren. At 6 feet, 7 inches tall, he was humble and disliked talking about himself. He was often referred to as the “gentle giant.” He loved singing and dancing throughout his life. Prayer was always his foundation and center. Joe’s legacy was a love for the mountains and the outdoors, a strong faith that sustained him through hard times, a keen intelligence and passion for reading, a sharp sense of humor, and an overriding love for his family.

Joe was preceded in death by his parents, his sisters Margaret Coder and Marian Anciaux, and his granddaughter Abigail Hope Ries.

He is survived by his wife, Ellen; and his six children, John Ries (Susannah) and children Violet and Gavin; Elizabeth Ries and children Maxwell and Lucinda Simpson; Justin Ries (Linda) and children Megan and William Ries; Matthew Ries (Alicia) and children Sarah, Katie, Sophia, Rebecca, David and Thomas; Mary Ries Nguyen (Frank) and children Joshua, Emily and Madeline; and Margaret Ries Frohlich (Joseph) and children Elise, Lily and James. He is also survived by numerous nieces and nephews.

A rosary will be said at 10 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 3, at St. Matthew’s Catholic Church in Kalispell. A funeral Mass to celebrate Joe’s life will begin at 11 a.m. A luncheon will follow downstairs in the fellowship hall.