Donald Elliot Olsson

Donald Elliot Olsson, lifetime resident of Ronan, Montana, died peacefully at home on Saturday, April 6. He celebrated his 89th birthday on March 20. Don was born in 1924 to Vida and Harald Olsson at their home in Pablo. Vida’s grandparents traveled by wagon train to Virginia City, Montana, in 1864, making Don a 4th generation Montanan.  He grew up in Ronan and graduated from Ronan High School in 1942. The Great Depression shaped Don’s early life. Children learned how to work at a young age during those years and his first job was selling eggs from his mother’s hens to neighbors and the Sterling Store. When he was ten he delivered papers on the east side of town, making about thirty-five cents a month per family. By high school he was working as a janitor at the Ronan State Bank, where his father, Harald, had worked as the cashier since 1924.  Don talked of cleaning the clinkers out of the coal furnace and oiling the wood floors and then sweeping them clean with sawdust. He and his three brothers also worked in the summer on their grandparent’s cattle ranch near Hall, Montana. Here he developed a love for horses and farming and met his future wife, Mildred (Pete) Balzhiser, who was selling tickets at the Pix movie theater in Drummond. But that chapter was on hold for World War II, a defining time in Don’s life.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Don was 17 and in high school. After graduation in 1942, he attended St. Olaf’s College in Minnesota for a semester. But he knew he would be drafted in March of 1943, so he tried to enlist in the Army Air Corp in January. Don said, “Even though I’d never been in an airplane, I really wanted to learn how to fly. They wouldn’t accept me because I had some bad teeth so I went home and Doc Crosby pulled them all out. A few days later I went back to the air base in Great Falls and they swore me in.” Don had basic training in Kerns, Utah, and then, by the luck of the draw, ended up in cadet training at the University of Montana. He flew in his first cub airplane out of Hale Field, located where Sentinel High School is now. After that he went to Scottsdale, Ariz. to learn how to fly open-cockpit Stearman biplanes. He thought he was washed out after crashing one, but the flight instructor was sympathetic. He learned to fly BT13s in Lancaster, Calif. and twin engine AT17s in Ft. Sumner, N.M. He graduated from flight school in June of 1944. For a young man from a small town in Montana this was all quite an experience. It was nothing, however, compared to what the next two years would bring. In the fall of 1944, Don’s 10th Combat Cargo squadron was sent to New York City to prepare for deployment in England. “We had to report in every day at 3 p.m. to see if we had orders,” Don remembered. “For days none came through, and we thought that was great, because the base wasn’t far from downtown and we went into the city and had fun.” Their destination was eventually changed to India and in late 1944; Don flew out with a convoy headed across the Atlantic Ocean. By then he was pilot on a C47, a transport aircraft developed from the Douglas DC-3 airliner. Each plane had a crew of three: pilot, co-pilot and a navigator. Don’s co-pilot, Vince Labona from Pennsylvania, became a lifelong friend. Together they first flew to Florida, then over the Amazon River and across the Atlantic by way of Ascension Island. If they missed the little island that was it—there was no other landing spot. To make things more difficult, the only navigation aids were time, distance and dead reckoning; there was no GPS, nor was there a Weather Channel.  Only reports from other pilots gave a clue as to what weather they could expect. After crossing the Atlantic they flew over Africa to Karachi (now in Pakistan, then part of India) and ended up at an Indian base called Din Jan. From there, they flew supplies “over the hump” to Kung Ming (now Kunming), in Southwest China.  The “hump” referred to the Himalayas, and because the mountains were too high to actually fly over, the planes would fly through the passes, often in the dark of night.  

When these missions started, the Japanese still held Burma, but in early 1945, the Allies regained control in the north and Don’s squadron moved to a place called Meshenaw, Burma.  The war ended soon after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and for the next few months Don flew troops and supplies from Shanghai to Peking (now Beijing). In January 1946, he came home on an aircraft carrier. He was only 21 years old. When asked how he handled so much pressure at such a young age, Don said that many of the pilots were young and from small towns like Ronan. He thought it was because they adapted easily having grown up working hard and doing lots of practical things like fixing motors, hitching teams, hunting and fishing. Once home from the war, Don wasted no time proposing to “Pete” Balzhiser, the love of his life. They were married in 1946 and Don began law school under the GI Bill at the University of Montana. They had a son, Donald E. Olsson Jr., in 1947. When Don received his law degree in 1950, they moved to Ronan and he began practicing law with Lloyd Wallace in Polson. A few months later Don started working with his father, Harald, president of Ronan State Bank. He continued to practice law to supplement the family income. In 1950, Debby, their first daughter was born, followed by Shelley in 1954. Eventually Don gave up most of his law practice to focus on the bank. He and Harald consolidated ownership and grew the bank substantially. Don was named president in 1964. In 1972, Don Jr. began working with his dad. Over the next 40 years the business continued to grow, eventually establishing facilities in Missoula, Pablo and Polson. Don Sr. loved work, the Mission Mountains, his family and the community of Ronan. He believed that a major responsibility of a small town bank is service to the community.  In addition to involvement in many community organizations, Don grew hundreds of trees and today you will find them at the Ronan City Park, St. Luke’s Extended Care and at the community-owned Mission Mountain Golf Club. He was an ardent champion of the golf course and supported its construction and ongoing operations. He also donated land, a bridge and support to one of his favorite projects, the Ronan City Park. In the 70s and 80s, Don became involved in banking on a national level and served as a director of the regional Federal Reserve Bank. He was also a director for the Northern Division of the U.S. Ski Association and a member of the Mission Valley Lodge number 78. Don worked until well into his 80s and many days you would find older residents of the valley in his office, looking for a piece of advice or sharing fishing and hunting stories. He loved giving (and eating) chocolates. He and local friends traveled over 25 times to Yakutak, Alaska for salmon fishing and one of his greatest legacies was taking his children and grandchildren into the Mission Mountains and the Bob Marshall Wilderness. There he had their undivided attention and used it to pass on his personal philosophy: “Work hard.  Play hard.  In that order.” Another was “Whatever work you do, do it to the very best of your ability—even if it’s pushing a broom.”  The kids all joked about his long lectures, but the thing was—he walked the walk and talked the talk. So they listened and learned. His last hunting trip was a few years ago, at 85. After he got his deer he announced he planned on hunting and fishing another 50 or so years. “After all, I’m just now approaching middle age.” He will be missed by his brother Harald (Flo) Olsson of Polson; three children, Don Olsson Jr. (Annette) of Ronan, Debby Olsson McClenahan of Polson, Shelley Olsson Geiszler (Tim) of Missoula; seven grandchildren, Karli (Ryan) Graves of Albany, Ore., Donnie Olsson (Carly) of Bozeman, Abby (Gordon) Zimmerman of Polson, William (Rana) McClenahan of Beirut, Lebanon, Lindsey McClenahan of San Francisco, Sam Geiszler of Missoula and Alex Geiszler of Missoula. He had seven precious great-grandchildren, Wyatt, Piper, Harper, Violet, Saylor, Kennedy and Rayan. The family extends grateful appreciation to the caregivers who gave him much happiness and peace over the past few years: Toni Mitchell, Nancy Wolfeld, Diane Guillliard, Teresa Victor, Deb Wack and Betty Duncan. A special thanks to his caregiver, Tom Normandeau, who was so creative and made everybody laugh, especially Don. Services were held on Monday, April 15, at 11 a.m. at Faith Lutheran Church in Ronan followed by graveside services at Mountain View Cemetery and a lunch reception at the Olsson home. Memorials in Don’s honor may be made to the Boys and Girls Club of Ronan, P.O. Box 334, Ronan, Montana 59864.