Mary Rosalie Crowell, 89

Mary Rosalie Crowell, 89, was born in Powell, Wyo., to Randolph Foss and Jennie Crowell on Aug. 2, 1915. She passed into the next life on March 7, 2005.

Graveside funeral services will be conducted at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 12, at Pinecrest Memorial Park. Pastor Barry Johnson from Southside Church will officiate. Friends may call at Coffelt's Moon Chapel on Saturday morning from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m.

Shortly thereafter, she moved with her parents, grandfather and great-grandfather and her older brother, Paul, to a property they had bought by Sandpoint from Humbird Lumber Co. after a forest fire had burned the timber and blackened the land. Mary grew up among the birches, the first trees to emerge after the fire.

As a child, Mary attended the old Great Northern School by the railroad tracks and afterward, wrote for 50 years or more to her beloved teacher, Ann Sturmer. She often talked of her teacher, and of other children attending the school.

Mary is remembered by some for handing out graham crackers to the small children at the old Methodist Church where a bank now stands. To many others, she is recalled as a kind, patient and trustworthy caregiver for the handicapped and elderly, who did the most menial chores with a sense of caring and grace, and asked very little in return. Mary, like the mother of Jesus with the same name, sought always to do His will and put her own needs aside in favor of others. She was a genuinely nice person.

Mary loved sweet peas, which she grew by her house, and always loved cats. She often reminisced how she would push a shenanigans-tolerant favorite cat around in her doll buggy as a child in lieu of a doll. Cats were just more fun, according to Mary. Two of her cats were "Fluffy" and "Sooty."

Pink was Mary's favorite color throughout her lifetime and anyone who was close to her knew about it. She also like cameo jewelry and anything antique-looking or Victorian. She was well read and especially like novels by authors Grace Livingston Hill, Louisa May Alcott and Jane Austin.

In her later years, some time after she had reached 80 years old, Mary began to develop Alzheimer's disease. She went to live for several years in Kent, Wash., with her nephew, David Crowell, his wife, Mary Ann, and sons, Daniel and Joseph, during this time. When Alzheimer's took too much of a toll, she went to live in Sandpoint at the Life Care Center until she went home to be with the Lord and previously passed members of her family, her Mom and Dad, grandparents, brothers Paul, Ken and Dwight; a nephew, Keith; and many, many others she truly cherished.

Mary Crowell is survived by two sisters-in-law, both named Margaret Crowell, one who lives in Sandpoint and the other who lives in Coeur d'Alene. She also is survived by three nieces, three nephews, numerous grandnieces and grandnephews and extended family. All who knew her remember her with utmost fondness.

Arrangements are under the care of Coffelt Funeral Service.