Ethel Lenore Partridge

Ethel Lenore (Rasmussen) Partridge passed peacefully at Valley View Home in Glasgow, Mont., on Thursday, May 21, 2015, at the age of 95.

Services and a celebration of her life will be Friday, July 3, at 11 a.m. at the First United Methodist Church in Glasgow.

She was born in Hinsdale, Mont., on April 5, 1920, to John and Tillie Rasmussen and was the second of eight children. She grew up on the farm and was the valedictorian of the Hinsdale class of 1937, where she played basketball for the Raiders.

In 1939 she married Richard Partridge in Glasgow. They lived in Malta and Havre before moving to Glasgow. Together they had seven children. She was a stay-at-home mother until her youngest children started school and she went to work at Sears in Glasgow and later for the Glasgow School District.

She was active in the South Side School PTA, as she had children in the Glasgow school system from 1946 to 1973. She was also an active member of the Methodist Church and was a state rep for the United Methodist Women for many years.

She was a long-time member of Degree of Honor. She served many years as a volunteer working elections at the courthouse. She was instrumental in helping start the Valley County Food Bank from its humble beginning in the basement of the Methodist church.

Her leisure time was spent in her garden doing yard work, and spending time at her cabin at Nelson Reservoir, where she spent three days a week throughout the summer months. Life went full circle for Ethel in her later years, living for a time at Nemont Manor and Valley View Home, where for years she had volunteered doing prayer readings, devotions and fixing hair for the residents.

She was preceded in death by four sisters and two brothers, her husband, Richard, in 1980, and two daughters, Sandra Sandidge in 1995 and Sheila Coates in 2001.

Survivors include two sons, Frank of Chinook and John and his wife, Debi, of Glasgow; three daughters, Sharon Ferguson and her husband, Dave, of Helena, Susan Jaworowski and her husband, Richard, of Denver, and Patti Fought and her husband, Randall, of Perrysburg, Ohio; two sisters, Delila Holderman of Glasgow and Dorris Reiber of Tacoma; 15 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren; and many nieces and nephews.

Bell Funeral Home of Glasgow is in charge of arrangements.