Marion Blair, 96

Marion Ovidia Plante Blair passed away on Mother’s Day, May 11, 2025, surrounded by her loving children. She was 96 years old. Marion was born on April 28, 1929, to William Joseph Plante and Margaret Louise Anderson Plante on a farm near Kindred, North Dakota. She spent most of her childhood years with her family in a small two-room house in the small Minnesota town of Oklee. Growing up during the Great Depression was not easy. After her parents separated, Marion helped her mother, Margaret, take care of her four younger brothers and took various jobs with her mother to help make ends meet.

Marion often talked about her third-grade teacher, Miss Owen, who inspired Marion to become a grade school teacher. As she sat at her desk in the third grade, Marion knew she would be a teacher one day. She was also encouraged in high school by her restaurant employer, Mrs. Coya Knutson, Minnesota’s first congresswoman to D.C. Both women in Marion’s life told her she could become anything she wanted, despite her humble beginnings.

After graduating from high school in 1949, Marion’s dream of becoming a teacher started taking shape when she was hired to teach at a rural school near Fordville, North Dakota. She still needed a teaching certificate, so she began to pursue training at Mayville State College in North Dakota during her summer breaks while continuing to teach in nearby rural schools.

In 1953, Marion’s brother Morris encouraged her to come to Montana, where teachers earned good pay. Marion contacted the superintendent of schools at Havre and learned of a rural teaching position with a teacherage to live in at a nice little farming town called Rudyard. 

When Marion arrived by train in Havre, a school board member picked her up and drove her 40 miles to Rudyard and another 20 miles north to the rural school. Once there, she realized the school was not in a little farming town. It was surrounded by miles and miles of open wheat fields. She nearly fainted when the board member told her to watch out for rattlesnakes. This was Marion’s introduction to Montana, but she made the best of it and stuck it out for the entire school year at that little school north of Rudyard.

The following year, Marion was hired to teach at a beautiful new grade school in the central Montana town of Geraldine. It was a welcome change from the windblown wheat fields of north central Montana. From 1955 to 1957, she taught in another newly built grade school in the northeastern Montana farm town of Peerless. She continued to take summer courses at Northern Montana College to earn her elementary education degree. 

Then in 1959, she got her big break when a kindergarten job opened in Glasgow, a town that was booming because of the new Glasgow Air Force Base. Marion taught kindergarten through second grade in three different schools during the six years she taught in Glasgow. In 1960, the school district named her teacher of the year. Marion finally received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Education from Northern Montana College in June 1961.

In Glasgow, Marion met her husband, Donald Alvin Blair, a maintenance foreman at the Glasgow Air Force Base. They were married in Glasgow on June 3, 1962. In 1965, they decided to adopt. By January 1966, they had a son, Craig Lynn. Following the death of another son, Angel Don, at birth, they decided again to adopt, and in May 1968, they added a daughter, Charmaine Marie. Finally, on Don’s birthday, Nov. 19, 1969, their third and final son, Kent Mark, was born.

When news came in 1967 that the Glasgow Air Force Base was closing, Don was fortunate to get a transfer to the Lakeside Radar Air Force Base on Flathead Lake. Don originally grew up in the Flathead Valley, and they were excited to move to Don’s hometown area of Columbia Falls in 1968. There, Don and Marion purchased a piece of land south of town on highway 206, where they worked hard to build a new home and raise their family. Marion loved her Montana home, surrounded by the beauty of the mountains, wildlife, and changing seasons.

Even though Marion did not return to teaching, she prepared her three children at home with their kindergarten lessons before they each entered the first grade. Born from her love of teaching, Marion loved all children and tried her best to support the local educational needs of her community and the children’s ministry at her church, Fellowship Christian & Missionary Alliance Church in Columbia Falls. Marion loved her church family and greatly missed them when she was no longer able to attend Sunday services due to her declining health.

Although Marion never learned to drive, she developed a great love for traveling. There were many memorable family vacations around the United States and parts of Canada. But her most memorable trip was in 1996 with her daughter Char to visit her son Craig in Moscow, Russia, where Craig was serving as a missionary with Campus Crusade for Christ. Together they visited places like London, England; Stratford upon Avon; Edinburgh, Scotland; and in Russia, Moscow and St. Petersburg. Don and Marion’s trip of a life time came in 1999, when they traveled the Alaskan highway through Canada to Fairbanks and Anchorage, returning to the US via the Alaskan Marine Highway through the Alaskan panhandle.

Marion’s love for her children and grandchildren was strong. She wanted them to understand where they came from. She devoted many hours to compiling her family history and gathering countless photos and memorabilia to make scrapbooks for the family. She also encouraged her adopted children, from a very young age, to one day find their biological families. When they finally did, she was overjoyed and happy for them both.

Marion will be remembered as a woman of deep conviction and faith in her savior, Jesus. She was a selfless, caring, devoted wife, mother, and grandmother. From her humble beginnings to her hard-earned teaching career, followed by her devotion to her family, Marion achieved a richly experienced life that brought her so much more than she ever dreamed she could have. But she also gave from her heart so much more than she received.

Marion is survived by her three children, Craig Blair, Kent Blair (Tina) both of Columbia Falls, Char Baker (David) of Kalispell; her grandchildren Tyler Cornelius (Kayla) of Kalispell, Curtis Blair of Seattle, WA, Kiennah Blair of Wenatchee, WA, and Rico Rothermel of Columbia Falls; and numerous nieces, nephews and their families. She is preceded in death by her husband Donald Blair; her infant son Angel Don Blair; her mother Margaret Anderson Plante; her father William Plante; her sister Ruby Plante;  her brothers Raymond, Elton, Kenneth and Morris Plante; her nephews Terry, Richard, Steven and Keith Plante; and her nieces Diane Plante Pettersen and Marlene Plante Sandbo.

There will be a private graveside service and internment at Conrad Memorial Cemetery in Kalispell, MT. Final arrangements have been made through Columbia Mortuary of Columbia Falls. The family wishes to thank Dr. Courtney Austin, Marion’s physician of many years, and the staff of Brendan House for their loving care and assistance in Marion’s final days. 

Instead of flowers, memorial gifts can be made to the Bad Rock Volunteer Fire Department or the Children’s Ministry of Fellowship Alliance Church in Columbia Falls.