Shirley May (Granfor) Loscheider

Shirley May (Granfor) Loscheider, 83, passed from this world due to cancer on Jan. 21, 2014, at her house west of Ronan. Shirley was born October 4, 1930, the daughter of Maurice and Bernice (Belile) Granfor. She spent the first years of her life on the homestead farm south of Dunn Center, North Dakota, which was first obtained by her grandmother, Martha Mork Granfor. She attended elementary school at a country school south of Dunn Center and graduated from Dunn Center High School in 1948. She attended Dickinson State College, North Dakota, and Northern Montana College in Havre earning a degree in elementary education, a career she pursued for 30 years. Her first teaching experiences were at country schools in western North Dakota.

She married Gerald Joseph Loscheider of Killdeer, North Dakota, by taking a winter road trip across the plains to Las Vegas, Nev., where they were married on New Year’s Eve 1950. After making their home in Killdeer for two years, they moved to the Ferdig-Oilmont, Mont. area in July 1952, where they made their home until 1967. Shirley taught grades 3 and 4 in Oilmont for most of her time in north-central Montana, but she also taught at country schools near the Sweetgrass Hills and Conrad.

In 1967, Shirley and Gerald bought a ranch west of Ronan and moved to western Montana. Shirley continued her teaching career at Ronan Elementary School from which she retired in 1989. After retirement, Shirley and Gerald began wintering in Arizona where they had a “snow bird” place in Apache Junction for over 20 years.  Shirley loved to square dance, play cards, bowl, golf, read and work sudoku.

Shirley is survived by her husband Gerald, two daughters Mavis (John) Greer and Renee (Tim) Murphy and one son, Jerry (Kathy) Loscheider; three grandsons: Brian (Melissa) Greer, Kevin (Rachel) Loscheider, and Craig (Julie) Loscheider; and five great-grandchildren: Lena, Austin, and Lillian Greer, and Aiden and Jacob Loscheider; three sisters: Dorothy Robison, Hazel Johnson, and Joan (Charles) Gestring; one brother, Wayne (Margene) Granfor; many close nieces and nephews, and dear friends Joan and Virgil Thompson.

There will be a celebration of her life at the Senior Citizen’s Center in Ronan, on Saturday, January 25 from 1-5 pm where card games will be played while we reminisce about the good times we shared with Shirley (Mom).