Nora Mona Mitchell, 91
Nora Mona Mitchell entered into rest on Feb. 27, 2008, at her home on the Dufort Road, Sagle, Idaho. She was 91.
Funeral services will be conducted at 1 p.m. Tuesday, March 4 in Coffelt's Funeral Chapel. Pastor Matt Lombard, Seventh-day Adventist Church, will officiate. Interment will be in the Westmond Cemetery.
Friends may call at Coffelt Funeral Service on Monday, March 3 from 1-6 p.m.
Mona was born on March 12, 1916, to Fred and Zerilda (Stone) Dunn at Formosa, Kan. Her parents left the “Dust Bowl” in 1933 for Arlee, Mont., where she soon met her future husband, Jasper L. Mitchell. Mona graduated from Arlee High School in 1934 and married Jasper in Missoula, Mont., on Dec. 25, 1935. In the interim, she worked for the Jesuit fathers at the St. Ignatius Mission at nearby St. Ignatius, Mont.
Jasper and Mona lived on a farm at Arlee until May 1944, at which time they moved their family of three young daughters and Jasper's small sawmill to the Dufort farm. The Dunns moved to an adjoining farm, and Fred and Jasper set up and operated the mill on Jasper's property. Mona has cooked for her haying and threshing crews in Montana; in Idaho she fed haying and sawmill crews. She and Jasper also had four more children, a son and three daughters.
Mona was active for years in women's Extension work, led a 4-H club, and, with her mother, helped organize the hot lunch program at the Westmond School. She was a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
At 58, Mona went to work for the Sandpoint Manor Nursing Home, becoming a certified nurse's aide. She retired in 2002 at 82. She loved small children, sewing, flowers and vegetable gardening, and in her last years, kept busy making quilts for the members of her large family. Her heart was always in the country, and all who loved her will remember her as forever busy; the word “rest” was not in her vocabulary.
Mona was preceded in death by her parents; a beloved father-in-law, Jasper A. Mitchell, whom she cared for in his last days; a sister and niece, Jessie and Joyce Sanders; her husband, Jasper, in September 1976; and two grandsons, Brandon May and Rob Wigen.
She is survived by her children, Marylyn Cork of Priest River, Rachel Montgomery of Sagle, Janice May of Whitepine, Tenn., Roy Mitchell of Sagle, Jessie Mitchell of Chattaroy, Wash., Priscilla Sink of Colbert, Wash., and Leisa Baldwin, Sagle; 32 grandchildren, 73 great-grandchildren, and 19 great-great-grandchildren called her grandma.
Hers was a long life of hard work and service to many. She will be sorely missed by all.
Family and friends are invited to sign Mona's online guest book at www.coffeltfuneral.com.
Funeral arrangements are under the care of Coffelt Funeral Service.