Alberta Vivian 'Birdie' Blanton

Our loving wife and mother, Alberta Vivian 'Birdie' (Norheim) Blanton, 77, of Helena, Mont., passed to our Lord Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2015, surrounded by family. She passed from complications of Alzheimer's disease.

She was the first born to Vivian Becker and Olaf Christian Norheim in Great Falls. The Norheims also lived briefly in Townsend and Fairfield before the family moved to Glasgow, where she grew up and graduated from Glasgow High School in 1955.

She and her friend, Evelyn, attended a basketball game at Opheim High School, a small town on the Canadian border, that changed her life forever. She met H. Deane Blanton at the game and married him a year later on Jan. 4, 1958, at the First Lutheran Church of Glasgow. They celebrated their 57th anniversary in January.

Mountain Bell Phone Company began her career and she retired in 1999 from the Montana State Library, Talking Books Division, where she loved helping customers. She was an avid reader, loved playing pinochle, crafting and especially fishing and camping. She will be missed immensely.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Vivian and Olaf Norheim; and two siblings, Kenneth and Dale Norheim.

Survivors include four children: Leisa Blanton, Anthony Blanton and his wife, Cindy, Kenneth Blanton and his wife, Sharron, all of Helena, and Steven Blanton and his wife, Kerri, of Jefferson City; five grandchildren, Tyler Blanton, Jayme Blanton O'Neil, Ashley Blanton, Cody Blanton and Jace Blanton; a great-granddaughter, Emma O'Neil (a Valentine baby); and three siblings: Darlene Schmidt of Fairfield, Dennis Norheim of Nashua, and Gail Winterhalter of Helena.

A Memorial Service was held at 11 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 11, at Anderson Stevenson Wilke Funeral Home, 3750 N. Montana Ave., in Helena, with a reception following in the Banquet Hall of the funeral home after the service. Burial will follow the reception at the Montana State Veterans Cemetery at Ft. Harrison.

Please visit http://www.aswfuneralhome.com to offer the family a condolence or to share a memory of Birdie. Memorials in her name are suggested to Helena Food Share, 1616 Lewis Street, Helena, MT 59601 or helenafoodshare.org.