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Gladys Ruth Spear

Lifelong Whitefish resident Gladys Ruth Spear passed away peacefully on Saturday, Oct. 29 at her home in the same Colorado Avenue neighborhood in Whitefish where she lived her entire life.

Gladys was 86 years old, the only child of Morris and Leona Howke Spear. She was born June 27, 1930 in the old hospital on the corner of Fourth Street and Spokane Avenue in Whitefish.

From her birth until 2008 she lived in a small simple cabin on the corner of Denver Street and Colorado Avenue, and since she never learned to drive, her 4-1/2 foot frame was frequently seen walking everywhere around town. After her parents passed in the ‘70s, Gladys found work doing odd jobs for friends and neighbors raking, gardening, chopping wood, mowing lawns and caring for their pets when they traveled. She loved animals and spent much of her life caring for horses, mules, dogs, cats, bunnies and goldfish.

Gladys was a frugal woman and lived her life simply and with a grace most of us can only envy. To her credit she lived a clean life and often would say her longevity was because she “never drank alcohol, smoked cigarettes or did drugs.” She read the Pilot and Hungry Horse News front to back every Wednesday and The Beacon on Thursday. She wanted to know “what is going to happen to this old world and earth and planet.”

In her later years, she still knew the names of everyone in the neighborhood and marveled at all the new development and changes with her own new “modern” home built on the very pasture where she cared for a few horses and a mule years earlier.

There will be a funeral service for Gladys at Austin Funeral Home in Whitefish on Friday, Nov. 4 at 10 a.m., with a viewing from 9-10 a.m. before the service, with a burial to follow at Glacier Memorial Gardens.

Gladys was aided in her battle against melanoma by Home Options Hospice, Meals on Wheels and the many loving neighbors and friends she acquired who will miss her greatly. Austin Funeral Home is caring for Gladys.