Kalispell MT Funeral Homes
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1890 US Highway 93 North
Kalispell, MT 59901
(406) 752-0336
2659 US Highway 93 North
Kalispell, MT 59901
(406) 752-2832
525 Main Street
Kalispell, MT
(406) 752-6666
639 Conrad Drive
Kalispell, MT 59901
(406) 257-1526
Kalispell MT Obituaries and Death Notices
Monday, March 27, 2017When I began searching online for affordable hotels for our family of three, I was stunned to find almost nothing for less than $200 a night. Not even chain motels in the larger neighboring city of Kalispell. Not even campgrounds, which were booked solid. Eventually, though, I pieced together an itinerary: an Airbnb here, a few midweek days at a midrange motel there, and one night at the home of a relative.For $112, our Airbnb in Big Arm was a surprisingly large, two-bedroom apartment with a wraparound deck, a narrow view of the lake and a washer and dryer — a bargain in this pricey terrain. But even with a well-equipped kitchen, we decided to eat out. Normally, we would save our splurge for the tail end of a trip, but after so many hours (and days) on the road, a steak dinner had become our finish line reward.In Polson (the nearest town), a local recommended 101 Main St., a steak and seafood restaurant that dry-ages its own beef. For the price of a mediocre plate of pasta in Manhattan, my husband, Tim, and I shared a large, tasty ribeye — praised by our waitress for its “flavorful fat” — and spoon-fed Roxie our mashed potatoes.But it was our server, Leslie, who was the highlight of the meal. She wore a pink head scarf over dark braids and doted on Roxie, bringing her a rattle and entertaining her as we ate. At the end of dinner, Leslie lifted Roxie into her arms and walked off with a casual, “Do you mind?” She knew we didn’t. It was the kind of thing that would never happen in most places. This unaffected warmth made as much of an impression on me as Montana’s dramatic vistas.Our motel, the Islander Inn, was one of the few I could find that came close to my $150 budget. From the outside, it looks like a classic midcentury motor lodge, but each room is named for an island — Bali, Zanzibar, Crete — and decorated in the spirit of that place. Our room, “Jamaica,” had deep blue-accent walls, white wicker furniture and evocative paintings of Caribbean palms. Just east of Bigfork in the enclave of Woods Bay, the Islander was across the street from the Raven, a turquoise-painted waterfront restaurant with a shaded patio and a dock where motorboaters tie up and go in for a drink.Though Flathead Lake Brewing Co. recently opened a huge new location in Bigfork, the original taproom, next door to the Islander, is the kind of local bar where customers greet one another by name and discuss livestock futures over a pint of craft beer.The next evening, our first night in Woods Bay, Tim was struck by what felt like a vicious case of food poisoning. Roxie and I went exploring by car on our own, eventually finding our way to the Echo Lake Cafe, an out-of-the-way roadside restaurant that has been serving local specialties like Flathead cherry cobbler and huckleberry ice cream since 1960.Our plan had been to go kayaking, but with Tim sick I wasn’t comfortable taking Roxie out on a tiny boat on such a large, unpredictable lake. It would have been largely a lost day. But that afternoon, while Tim and Roxie napped, my dad’s cousin, LouAnn, whom I hadn’t seen since my grandmot...
Monday, October 24, 2016When I began searching online for affordable hotels for our family of three, I was stunned to find almost nothing for less than $200 a night. Not even chain motels in the larger neighboring city of Kalispell. Not even campgrounds, which were booked solid. Eventually, though, I pieced together an itinerary: an Airbnb here, a few midweek days at a midrange motel there, and one night at the home of a relative.We arrived in Big Arm, a community on the lake’s southwest side, after traveling through five Western states with Roxie and too much stuff in a tiny Toyota hatchback. The final leg of the trip — Northeast Oregon to Montana — ended up being our longest single day of driving. And by the time we checked into our Airbnb, we had been on the road from breakfast to dinner. Even with stops, those are a lot of hours in the car for a toddler who seems to live for crawling and climbing. But Roxie handled her car-bound captivity like a stoic champion, with only the occasional outburst of understandable frustration.For $112, our Big Arm Airbnb was a surprisingly large, two-bedroom apartment with a wraparound deck, a narrow view of the lake and a washer and dryer — a bargain in this pricey terrain. But even with a well-equipped kitchen, we decided to eat out. Normally, we would save our splurge for the tail end of a trip, but after so many hours (and days) on the road, a steak dinner had become our finish line reward.In Polson (the nearest town, 15 minutes south) a local recommended 101 Main St., a steak and seafood restaurant that dry-ages its own beef. For the price of a mediocre plate of pasta in Manhattan, my husband, Tim, and I shared a large, tasty rib-eye — praised by our waitress for its “flavorful fat” — and spoon-fed Roxie our mashed potatoes. But it was our server, Leslie, who was the highlight of the meal. She wore a pink head scarf over dark braids and doted on Roxie, bringing her a rattle and entertaining her as we ate. As we handed back our check at the end of dinner, Leslie lifted Roxie into her arms and walked off with a casual, “Do you mind?” She knew we didn’t. It was the kind of thing that would never happen in most places. This unaffected warmth made as much of an impression on me as Montana’s dramatic vistas.Throughout our week in Flathead, I heard my grandmother’s voice everywhere. Over dinner at 101 Main St., we made small talk with the next table over, where a woman from San Diego who had grown up in the area told us she was revisiting her “ruts,” a pronunciation of roots that reminded me of my grandmother. I heard it in the cafe at Echo Lake, when a child was admonished, for giving his mother “guff.” And I heard it two days later, when we ordered a lunch at Saddlehorn Bar and Grille, where we had kayaked from across the bay, only to realize that neither of us had brought our wallets on our watery outing. “We trust you,” our server said. “Come back later, there’s no hurry.”Our motel, the Islander Inn, was one of the few I could find that came close to my $150 nightly budget. From the outside, it looks like a classic midcentury motor lodge, but each room is named for an island — Bali, Zanzibar, Crete — and decora...
Monday, July 11, 2016Bigfork High School.Madison, who was wearing her seat belt, died of head injuries Sunday afternoon when the sport utility vehicle she was in rolled off U.S. 93 north of Kalispell and caught fire, according to law enforcement. Another youth, who was driving the vehicle, survived. Both had been pulled out of the vehicle by witnesses.Madison would have been a senior at Bigfork High School this fall.“We are all shocked and saddened by this event. We are sharing this information with our staff and students so they know the facts and know where to receive support if desired,” Bigfork School District Superintendent Matt Jensen wrote in a newsletter emailed to parents and the school community Monday. “Our prayers are with the Duke family.”Counselors were made available Tuesday to students in two counseling sessions at the elementary and middle school. Jensen said in a phone interview Tuesday that additional sessions would be added as needed.“We are saddened,” Jensen said. “She was a lovely kid and we’re going to miss her.”During high school, Madison worked as a “Bigfork buddy” supervising children at a day care program at the high school, served as a manager for the wrestling team, had been involved in choir, earning excellent ratings at dis...
Monday, July 04, 2016Saturday, including their plans to continue the search if the bear hasn't been found, Fraley said.Treat, 38, was a local boy, having grown up in nearby Kalispell, where he was a standout distance runner in high school. He returned home after attending college in Washington state and Missoula and worked as a seasonal park ranger in Glacier from 1999 to 2001.He married a local girl, a photographer named Somer Hileman, and became a Forest Service law enforcement officer in 2004. He spent the last 12 years stationed at the remote Hungry Horse District in the Flathead National Forest, whose territory stretches into the untamed Great Bear Wilderness."He was quite a guy by what everyone says, a big-time hiker, backcountry traveler who had a lot of experience," Fraley said.Treat still loved to run as an adult, and he came in eighth in the Spokane Marathon in 2013. His childhood and college friend, Miles Mason, described Treat as "ultra-competitive" and said he used to get awakened by his friend every morning to go run."He was always the runner I aspired to be, and as I got to know him, the friend I aspired to be and later the husband I aspired to be. An amazing person," Mason said.Treat was knocked off his bike Wednesday after he and another rider apparently surprised the bear while riding along a Flathead National Forest trail less than a mile from his home, authorities said. The other rider, a relative of Treat's whose name was not released, went to get help and was not hurt.His death has hit the tight-knit community of Forest Service employees in northwestern Montana hard, Flathead National Forest spokeswoman Janette Turk said."They are traumatized and affected by this, grieving the loss of a comrade," she said.Forest Service officials were working with the family on funeral arrangements, she said Friday.Bears that attack humans are killed if it is found that they displayed predatory behavior, such as stalking the person or consuming their victim.In this case, officials said is too soon to say what will be done to the bear if it is found. They are trying to determine if the animal was a mother with cubs, was protecting a food cache or...
Kalispell News
Monday, March 27, 2017When I began searching online for affordable hotels for our family of three, I was stunned to find almost nothing for less than $200 a night. Not even chain motels in the larger neighboring city of Kalispell. Not even campgrounds, which were booked solid. Eventually, though, I pieced together an itinerary: an Airbnb here, a few midweek days at a midrange motel there, and one night at the home of a relative.For $112, our Airbnb in Big Arm was a surprisingly large, two-bedroom apartment with a wraparound deck, a narrow view of the lake and a washer and dryer — a bargain in this pricey terrain. But even with a well-equipped kitchen, we decided to eat out. Normally, we would save our splurge for the tail end of a trip, but after so many hours (and days) on the road, a steak dinner had become our finish line reward.In Polson (the nearest town), a local recommended 101 Main St., a steak and seafood restaurant that dry-ages its own beef. For the price of a mediocre plate of pasta in Manhattan, my husband, Tim, and I shared a large, tasty ribeye — praised by our waitress for its “flavorful fat” — and spoon-fed Roxie our mashed potatoes.But it was our server, Leslie, who was the highlight of the meal. She wore a pink head scarf over dark braids and doted on Roxie, bringing her a rattle and entertaining her as we ate. At the end of dinner, Leslie lifted Roxie into her arms and walked off with a casual, “Do you mind?” She knew we didn’t. It was the kind of thing that would never happen in most places. This unaffected warmth made as much of an impression on me as Montana’s dramatic vistas.Our motel, the Islander Inn, was one of the few I could find that came close to my $150 budget. From the outside, it looks like a classic midcentury motor lodge, but each room is named for an island — Bali, Zanzibar, Crete — and decorated in the spirit of that place. Our room, “Jamaica,” had deep blue-accent walls, white wicker furniture and evocative paintings of Caribbean palms. Just east of Bigfork in the enclave of Woods Bay, the Islander was across the street from the Raven, a turquoise-painted waterfront restaurant with a shaded patio and a dock where motorboaters tie up and go in for a drink.Though Flathead Lake Brewing Co. recently opened a huge new location in Bigfork, the original taproom, next door to the Islander, is the kind of local bar where customers greet one another by name and discuss livestock futures over a pint of craft beer.The next evening, our first night in Woods Bay, Tim was struck by what felt like a vicious case of food poisoning. Roxie and I went exploring by car on our own, eventually finding our way to the Echo Lake Cafe, an out-of-the-way roadside restaurant that has been serving local specialties like Flathead cherry cobbler and huckleberry ice cream since 1960.Our plan had been to go kayaking, but with Tim sick I wasn’t comfortable taking Roxie out on a tiny boat on such a large, unpredictable lake. It would have been largely a lost day. But that afternoon, while Tim and Roxie napped, my dad’s cousin, LouAnn, whom I hadn’t seen since my grandmot...
Monday, October 24, 2016When I began searching online for affordable hotels for our family of three, I was stunned to find almost nothing for less than $200 a night. Not even chain motels in the larger neighboring city of Kalispell. Not even campgrounds, which were booked solid. Eventually, though, I pieced together an itinerary: an Airbnb here, a few midweek days at a midrange motel there, and one night at the home of a relative.We arrived in Big Arm, a community on the lake’s southwest side, after traveling through five Western states with Roxie and too much stuff in a tiny Toyota hatchback. The final leg of the trip — Northeast Oregon to Montana — ended up being our longest single day of driving. And by the time we checked into our Airbnb, we had been on the road from breakfast to dinner. Even with stops, those are a lot of hours in the car for a toddler who seems to live for crawling and climbing. But Roxie handled her car-bound captivity like a stoic champion, with only the occasional outburst of understandable frustration.For $112, our Big Arm Airbnb was a surprisingly large, two-bedroom apartment with a wraparound deck, a narrow view of the lake and a washer and dryer — a bargain in this pricey terrain. But even with a well-equipped kitchen, we decided to eat out. Normally, we would save our splurge for the tail end of a trip, but after so many hours (and days) on the road, a steak dinner had become our finish line reward.In Polson (the nearest town, 15 minutes south) a local recommended 101 Main St., a steak and seafood restaurant that dry-ages its own beef. For the price of a mediocre plate of pasta in Manhattan, my husband, Tim, and I shared a large, tasty rib-eye — praised by our waitress for its “flavorful fat” — and spoon-fed Roxie our mashed potatoes. But it was our server, Leslie, who was the highlight of the meal. She wore a pink head scarf over dark braids and doted on Roxie, bringing her a rattle and entertaining her as we ate. As we handed back our check at the end of dinner, Leslie lifted Roxie into her arms and walked off with a casual, “Do you mind?” She knew we didn’t. It was the kind of thing that would never happen in most places. This unaffected warmth made as much of an impression on me as Montana’s dramatic vistas.Throughout our week in Flathead, I heard my grandmother’s voice everywhere. Over dinner at 101 Main St., we made small talk with the next table over, where a woman from San Diego who had grown up in the area told us she was revisiting her “ruts,” a pronunciation of roots that reminded me of my grandmother. I heard it in the cafe at Echo Lake, when a child was admonished, for giving his mother “guff.” And I heard it two days later, when we ordered a lunch at Saddlehorn Bar and Grille, where we had kayaked from across the bay, only to realize that neither of us had brought our wallets on our watery outing. “We trust you,” our server said. “Come back later, there’s no hurry.”Our motel, the Islander Inn, was one of the few I could find that came close to my $150 nightly budget. From the outside, it looks like a classic midcentury motor lodge, but each room is named for an island — Bali, Zanzibar, Crete — and decora...
Monday, July 11, 2016Bigfork High School.Madison, who was wearing her seat belt, died of head injuries Sunday afternoon when the sport utility vehicle she was in rolled off U.S. 93 north of Kalispell and caught fire, according to law enforcement. Another youth, who was driving the vehicle, survived. Both had been pulled out of the vehicle by witnesses.Madison would have been a senior at Bigfork High School this fall.“We are all shocked and saddened by this event. We are sharing this information with our staff and students so they know the facts and know where to receive support if desired,” Bigfork School District Superintendent Matt Jensen wrote in a newsletter emailed to parents and the school community Monday. “Our prayers are with the Duke family.”Counselors were made available Tuesday to students in two counseling sessions at the elementary and middle school. Jensen said in a phone interview Tuesday that additional sessions would be added as needed.“We are saddened,” Jensen said. “She was a lovely kid and we’re going to miss her.”During high school, Madison worked as a “Bigfork buddy” supervising children at a day care program at the high school, served as a manager for the wrestling team, had been involved in choir, earning excellent ratings at dis...
Monday, July 04, 2016Saturday, including their plans to continue the search if the bear hasn't been found, Fraley said.Treat, 38, was a local boy, having grown up in nearby Kalispell, where he was a standout distance runner in high school. He returned home after attending college in Washington state and Missoula and worked as a seasonal park ranger in Glacier from 1999 to 2001.He married a local girl, a photographer named Somer Hileman, and became a Forest Service law enforcement officer in 2004. He spent the last 12 years stationed at the remote Hungry Horse District in the Flathead National Forest, whose territory stretches into the untamed Great Bear Wilderness."He was quite a guy by what everyone says, a big-time hiker, backcountry traveler who had a lot of experience," Fraley said.Treat still loved to run as an adult, and he came in eighth in the Spokane Marathon in 2013. His childhood and college friend, Miles Mason, described Treat as "ultra-competitive" and said he used to get awakened by his friend every morning to go run."He was always the runner I aspired to be, and as I got to know him, the friend I aspired to be and later the husband I aspired to be. An amazing person," Mason said.Treat was knocked off his bike Wednesday after he and another rider apparently surprised the bear while riding along a Flathead National Forest trail less than a mile from his home, authorities said. The other rider, a relative of Treat's whose name was not released, went to get help and was not hurt.His death has hit the tight-knit community of Forest Service employees in northwestern Montana hard, Flathead National Forest spokeswoman Janette Turk said."They are traumatized and affected by this, grieving the loss of a comrade," she said.Forest Service officials were working with the family on funeral arrangements, she said Friday.Bears that attack humans are killed if it is found that they displayed predatory behavior, such as stalking the person or consuming their victim.In this case, officials said is too soon to say what will be done to the bear if it is found. They are trying to determine if the animal was a mother with cubs, was protecting a food cache or...
