Doris Dunster

Doris (Nickels) Dunster, 92, passed away Thursday, March 24, 2016, in Snohomish, Wash. Though she had lived in Washington since 1967, she was a Montana girl to the end. She loved to tell stories of Montana life growing up with her brothers and sisters, often laughing so hard she couldn't finish her sentences.

She was born to Herman "H.J." and Lydia Nickels in Glasgow, Aug. 1, 1924, and grew up on their ranch they had built up from a homestead on the Missouri River near Ft. Peck. She graduated from Nashua High School. During WWII, she was a Rosie the Riveter with her sisters, Thelma and Vera, in Hawthorne, Calif., before going to nursing school at Deaconess Hospital in Spokane and Washington State University in Pullman.

She married George Dunster on May 3, 1945, after he returned from the Philippines where he served in the army during the war. They lived in Nashua until 1960, where they raised the first four (Greg, Mary, Ed and Doug) of their five kids. Mark, her youngest, was born in Billings.

She was a registered nurse and worked at the hospital in Poplar from 1961-1966, before the family moved to Thompson Falls and then to Tacoma, Wash. She worked in Labor and Deliver and the nursery at Tacoma General Hospital, knitting baby blankets and booties for almost all the babies she cared for.

She was preceded by her husband, George; her oldest son, Greg; one brother, Russell "Rusty," and two sisters, Thelma Register and Vera Terry.

Survivors include children and grandchildren, Susanne Thurman, Leigh Dunlap, Emily Dunster and great-grandson David Dunlap; two brothers, Jack and Lester "Swede;" and many nieces and nephews and their children.