Friends, family gather to makeover Robison home

It started out that Linda Olson wanted to spruce up the landscape at Ron and Nancy Robison’s rural Columbia Falls home.

But one phone call led to another and another and another, and not only was a new landscape going in, they were putting a roof on the garage, and then the house. Then they painted the trim and the doors and built a new deck.

They also put up a flagpole running through an old boat that hosted a huge flower garden.

“It was just going to be a yard cleanup,” said Olson, who is Nancy’s sister.

The Robisons were away in Helena to watch a play. Meanwhile, more than 40 people came to help overhaul the house. A host of local businesses donated supplies.

“When they come home, it will be a brand new place,” Olson said.

It was the least friends and family could do. The Robisons have lost two sons to climbing accidents. Mason Robison died in a fall while climbing El Capitan in Yosemite National Park on May 19. He was 38. Mark perished in a climbing accident on July 3, 1997, in Glacier National Park. Both were experienced climbers and loved the mountains. Ron and Nancy are in mourning.

“They need a distraction,” Olson said. “They can sail on the lake this summer and not worry about the house.”

Nancy has worked at the front desk at Columbia Falls Junior High for 28 years. Ron worked at the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. plant and now is a painter.

“Everyone who has shown up has had Ron and Nancy touch their lives somehow,” Olson said.

“There’s a lot of love going on here,” said friend Jeannie Shea as she put new letters on the freshly-painted mailbox out front.