Obituary - Betty Ann (Lerum) Heimbigner

Betty Ann (Lerum) Heimbigner, 70, passed away on Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 2018, in Great Falls at Benefis Health System after more than four years of battling with leukemia as well as multiple knee replacements.

Betty was born on May 17, 1948, to Clifford Maynard and Doris Antonia (Ruud) Lerum in Cut Bank while the family lived in Ethridge. She was the fourth of seven children. Her father managed several service stations and worked as mechanic as she grew up with her mother helping with the accounting of the service stations.

When Betty was 3 years old, the family moved to Valier and she attended the Valier Public School for first and second grades. She attended the Chester Public Schools for third through eighth grades, Fort Benton Public Schools for ninth through the first half of her senior year to December 1965, and the family moved back to Chester in 1966 where Betty finished her senior year and graduated from Chester High School in 1966.

On December 23, 1965, she married Don Heimbigner. Betty worked as a waitress at the Tip Top Restaurant and at The Grand Hotel and Restaurant in Chester, MT. On September 20, 1967, they were blessed with their first son, Donavan Walter. On June 13, 1970, their second son, Conrad Clifford was born. In the mid '70s, Betty started working at the Liberty County Medical Center, where she worked as a team member of the cooking staff while taking various courses for being a dietitian. In the early '80s, she transferred to the housekeeping staff at the Liberty County Medical Center, where she worked until retirement on May 3rd, 2013, after her right knee replacement had complications. In the '90s Betty started working part-time in the bakery department at Mike's IGA in Chester, MT, until the early 2010s. Betty also took care of the accounting for H & H Pumping from 1960 until 1983 as well as for the current name of Don's Septic Service from the name change in 1983 to 2018. She also helped deliver papers for the subscribers of the Great Falls Tribune with the family from 1977 until 1987 for the town of Chester, MT.

Betty was a one-of-a-kind person who raised two boys and helped Donnie and anyone else that needed a helping hand. Her favorite things in life were God, family, and friends. She could play a mean game of Aggravation as well as many other card games! Betty was a very hard worker with a big heart that would never let her pain be known while she took care of others.

In her "free time" Betty was active in the local Sons of Norway, a member of Our Saviors' Lutheran Church in Chester, MT, as well as an active member in the Martha Circle and other church-related activities as time allowed, and other community events as time allowed between the other responsibilities she was handling including the several trips to knee and joint specialists in Missoula for multiple knee and hip replacements and cancer treatments in Great Falls in the last seven years.

Through the years, she took courses in drawing, started re-covering automotive seats as well as manufacturing home furniture and attended various adult education classes when time permitted including making stain glass windows.

Her most memorable trips include various Glacier/Banff National Parks family trips; a trip to Fir Mountain, Saskatchewan, to visit the Claude Hardin Family in late '70s; a family trip with Alice Heimbigner to West Virginia to visit Alice's daughter Pearl Morton and family in the mid '80s; attending the U.S. Army graduation ceremony of Private C. Heimbigner at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, in the Fall of 1988; trips to Oregon to visit her sister Diane at Medford, Oregon, in 1977 and again to visit her son Donavan while working for a logging company in the greater Portland, Oregon, area in the mid 2000s; and a visit to Jacksonville, Florida, to visit her new granddaughter in early spring of 2008.

Survivors include her husband, Don Heimbigner; sons, Donavan and Conrad Heimbigner; grandchildren, Zakary (Zak) Heimbigner of Chester, Severin Heimbigner and Walter Heimbigner of Big Sandy, and Lena Dantas of Jacksonville, FL; and siblings, Monte (Sharon) Lerum of Galata, Vivian (Lawrence) House of Great Falls, and Westley Lerum of White City, Oregon.

Funeral services will be held Saturday, December 1, at 11:00 a.m. at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Chester.

Condolences can be made to Betty's memorial page at http://www.asperfh.com/.