Esther Elsie Enkerud

Esther Elsie (Wagner) Enkerud, 83, passed away from natural causes on Friday, Jan. 2, 2015, at the Hi-Line Retirement Center in Malta, Mont.

She was born at home in Brockway, Mont., on Oct. 27, 1931, the third child, and the second daughter to Rueben and Elsie (Strobel) Wagner. She graduated from Circle High School in May 1949. Always wanting to be a nurse, she pursued her dream by riding the bus from Circle to Glendive and then boarding a train to Bozeman and enrolling at Montana State College. During college she lived in the Quonsets. She interned at Warm Springs and the Billings hospital to complete her college requirements. After graduating in 1953 with a bachelor of science in nursing, she came to the Frances Mahon Deaconess Hospital in Glasgow where she worked as a nurse from 1953 to 1971.

She met the love of her life, Sever Enkerud, while caring for his father, Ole, on the second floor of the hospital. She and Sever were married on June 5, 1954, in Sidney. They lived in Glasgow at the Keagy Apartments for a brief time before moving west to Tampico, where they worked alongside each other on their family ranch. In addition, they raised four daughters.

She enjoyed gardening, sewing, canning, playing the piano, planting flowers and was also an avid reader. She passed her musical talent (piano) on to her daughters and granddaughters. Reading daily devotions and applying them in her life was a witness of her faith and relationship with Jesus Christ. She was a member of the Far & Wide Extension Homemakers Club, the First Lutheran Church Sarah Circle, Valley County Cowbelles, and the Sons of Norway Dalen Lodge.

As a lifetime member of the Montana Nurse's Association, she kept her nursing license current. Being a Tampico Boys 4-H Club mom, she spent many hours teaching her girls how to sew and rip, cook and bake, and firmly stated that their fair animals were their projects, not the neighbor boys', and lastly, "Get those darn record books done."

She thoroughly enjoyed her five granddaughters, especially when they came to visit and she could cook their favorite foods, plant flowers and vegetables, play Yahtzee, or just spend good quality time with them. Though she said she didn't like to cook, many people enjoyed her meals and requested her recipes. A milestone in her and Sever's marriage was celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary this past June. They shared their love of dancing and celebrating with friends and family.

She lived at the Hi-Line Retirement Center in Malta the past two years, making many new friends, especially the 300 wing staff. As the saying goes, "Once a nurse, always a nurse." With any new nursing employee, she would have them line up her meds on the table, tell her why she was taking it, the name of the med, and expect them to pronounce the med correctly. The veteran nurses enjoyed the schooling the "newbies" received with their first encounter of allocating meds to Esther. She and Sever enjoyed fellowship at the Grace Fellowship Church and treasured Pastor Joe's weekly visits. She continued to be involved in the ranch, checking on the baby calves in the spring and made sure her family had a good count as the cows went through the fall pasture gate.

She was preceded in death by two brothers, Lawrence and LaVerne Wagner; and special in-laws, Hazel and Joseph M. Halvorsen.

Survivors include her husband, Sever; two daughters, Kim Lacey and her husband, John, of Glasgow, and Ava and her husband, Randy; granddaughters, Kariana, Avery and Emma Sunnarborg of Rochester, Minn., Paula Enkerud of Malta, Tena and her husband, Bruce, and Cecile and Jaclyn Ketchum of Plevna, Mont; two sisters, Evelyn Kemp and Mary Pawloski and her husband, Wendell; and several nieces and nephews.

Funeral services were held Tuesday, Jan. 6, at 11 a.m. at the First Lutheran Church in Glasgow, followed by interment in the Highland Cemetery in Glasgow.

The family asked that memorials be made to the Hi-Line Retirement Center for Professional Training, or the First Lutheran Church of Glasgow. Bell Mortuary of Glasgow was in charge of arrangements.

She was a sweet soul and blessings of her spirit and love live on in her wise words, in her kind ways that shaped her family and others, and in the memories that will always be there. Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10.