Jean Helen Schmidt
Jean Helen Schmidt passed peacefully away on Aug. 26 in Fruita, Colo., after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer’s.
She was born Aug. 21, 1924 in Los Angeles, the last of four children to Perry and Patience Irish. After completing high school she pursued her secondary education in Bellingham, Wash., and graduated as a registered nurse.
After graduation she moved to Montana to be near her parents who had established a ranch near Roy in the Missouri breaks. She worked as an RN up until her retirement in the early 1990s. Over the years, Jean worked in multiple places such as Heart Butte, Malta, Whitefish, Fairbanks and Seattle.
An unhappy marriage, resulting in divorce, found her a single mother of two toddlers moving to Malta. It was there she met and married her love and forever companion, Nickolas Schmidt. Jean and Nick had five children of their own before pioneering a new life in Whitefish, when their youngest was still in diapers.
Jean worked at the Whitefish hospital opposite shifts from Nick, taking turns attending the children. Together they elegantly, gracefully and peacefully kept a large family and household operating like clockwork.
Jean was a consummate professional nurse and a driven, sturdy, giving and compassionate mother. Her life was about her husband and children and she ensured that we did not suffer or do without even when her self sacrifices at times were many. As a mother and wife she was fully dedicated and instilled in her children all essential foundation of honesty, integrity, love, acceptance and compassion.
For many years her family tradition in the winter months was to eliminate the TV, making reading the priority. Saturday trips to the library to get our books, Jean chose books by Twain and Dickens that she read with assured inflection to her enthralled children until completed. We can all recall her reading Tom Sawyer pronouncing the broken southern drawl to the point that the book became a movie.
While work and children were full-time commitments she had many other interests as well. She believed in sustainability, growing her own flowers, vegetables, raising livestock, and preserving much for winter. She understood the importance of diet and lifestyle way before mainstream acceptance, making her family fresh salads, granola, and yogurt 20 years before you could purchase such at your average grocery store.
Her passionate interest in alternative medicines, homeopathy, acupuncture, organic supplements and sustainable agriculture provided plenty of personal reading material for her “down time.”
Once the children were out of the house, Jean and Nick retired and forged a new life in Trout Creek, then Port Townsend, Wash. As her memory loss affliction worsened, they moved to Utah and finally a home in Fruita. Nick and their eldest daughter moved to Fruita to be close to her.
While her affliction was most difficult to witness or understand, her actions were beautiful and glorious to behold. Up until her passing she continued her mission of compassion and giving, assisting all those around her and relishing her daily visits with her husband, holding hands and talking when recognition was simply at a cellular and essential level. The disease dramatically changed her but she also became more of the person she always was; sweet, gentle, kind and giving to all. She will be deeply missed and remembered always.
Jean is preceded in death by her parents, Perry and Patience; husband, Nick (two months to the day prior); brother, Red; and sister, Lois.
Jean is survived by her sister, Patricia of North Carolina; children, Nicky of North Dakota, Janina of Fruita, Colo., Jennifer of Port Townsend, Wash., Jeffrey of Whitefish, and Marianne, Port Angeles, Wash. She is also survived by her grandchildren, Randelle Hamm and her family of Oregon, Elisabeth of California, Nicholas and Benjamin of Oregon, Haley of Colorado, Nolan and Emmitt of Whitefish.
Jean and Nick will be honored and celebrated together Sept. 27 in Fruita, Colo. Visit online at www.spanishvalleymortuary.com for details.