Frances Jesse Liebig

KALISPELL — Former Lake County school teacher Frances Jesse Liebig, 97, died Monday, Jan. 29, 2007, at Kalispell Regional Medical Center. She was born Oct. 15, 1909, in Kalispell to Frank F. and Lulu Mae (McMahon) Liebig.

Frances was raised for a brief time at the head of Lake McDonald in a U.S. Forest Service cabin before Glacier Park became a park. Her family moved to Libby, where Frances attended school as a child. Her father was transferred to Kalispell, where Frances and her siblings all attended Central School and Flathead High School. As a girl, she summered on Lake McDonald as a nanny for several families and friends vacationing on the lake. She enjoyed her time in Glacier Park, and gained much knowledge about the botany and flora of the park, and used it throughout her life. The animals also became part of her life forever, and were always in her memories and stories of the park. She hiked the many trails made by her father, a forest ranger, and fished the lakes by herself and with her friends.

She was a fire lookout in the park during the war, on Mount Brown for two summers, and on Canyon Lookout. She loved her work as a lookout and had many stories to tell about hiking down through the woods for a half mile to get water at a creek for her drinking and cooking. The grizzlies, mountain goats and hikers became her excitement during her stay high on the mountain tops.

She attended the Montana Western Division of the university at Dillon and the University of Seattle. She also attended the University of Montana during the summers.

She became a teacher and taught at many country schools in Montana, including Niarada, D’Aste, Great Falls, Plentywood and Elmo.

In 1945, she moved to California, where she found employment as an assistant auditor on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. She remained at that job for 15 years and enjoyed the cultural events in the area during that time.

In 1960, she returned to Montana and ranched with her brother, Carl, on the Thompson River, west of Kalispell, where she and her brother took care of their mother, Lulu. Frances retired from ranching in 1983, and moved to the Flathead Lake area and made her own little mountain paradise high above the lake, which she enjoyed very much.

She will also be remembered by all of the friends, Tom Watts of Kellogg, Idaho; Bob Watts of Kent, Wash.; Bill Sanders of Finley Point; Elmer Bender of Missoula; Ethel and Ralph Videtto of Pleasant Valley, Calif.; and all others who loved her and cared for her over the years and helped her stay on her mountain top. Her intelligence and spirit inspired all of them over the years. She was the tiny little lady known to them as, “Frances of the Forest.”

Frances was preceded in death by her mother, Lulu, and her father, Frank F. Liebig; her brothers and sisters, Carl G. Liebig, Lyman Liebig, Margaret Miller, Irma Lyght and Jean Soldowski.

Frances is survived by many nieces and nephews, many grandnieces and grandnephews; and great-grandnieces and great-grandnephews; and her longtime friend and caregiver, Marjorie Sizemore.

Graveside services will be held at a later date at the Conrad Memorial Cemetery. Frances will be cremated and laid to rest beside her mother and father, Frank and Lulu Liebig, and her brother, Carl G. Liebig.