Serving Whitman County since 1877

Doris Eriksen

Doris M. (Glorfield) Eriksen, life-long St.John area resident, passed away Thursday, July 18th, 2019, at the Community Pride Senior Living in St. John, Wash. A graveside service was held Wednesday, July 24th, at 10:30 a.m. at the St. John Cemetery, followed by a reception and lunch at the St. John Methodist Church.

Doris was born at the family home of Jack Peter (JP) and Grace (Hench) Glorfield on the 29th of July, 1916. She was the oldest of six children in the family. She learned to ride early in life and rode her horse approximately four miles to the grade school in Ewan. She graduated from Ewan High School in 1934, and attended Eastern Washington College of Education, in Cheney, Wash., where she received her four year degree in Education in 1938.

When Doris was 17, her mother (Grace) died of pneumonia. Besides plans for college, she had additional responsibility for her five younger siblings, and affairs dealing with the ranch. With her fathers direction, on occasion, she sold grain, and drove to town to pick up men for harvest help.

October 16th, 1938, she married Elmer Ogden Eriksen, her high school sweetheart from Ewan. They settled on a farm six miles west of St. John where they spent 72 years. The marriage produced one son, Tracy, who is on the family farm.

March of 2011 she and Ogden moved to the Community Pride Senior Living facility in St. John. Earlier in life Doris was active in the Ewan Neighbors Club, the Federated Women's Club where she held several offices, and the Grange where she held offices in both the Subordinate (Eaton Grange #961) and the regional Pomona Grange. She had a special interest in a Pomona project, Camp Easter Seal on the shore of Lake Coeur d'Alene. The camp provided a camping experience for handicapped children (blind and deaf).

In her semi-retirement years she and Ogden spent a lot of time at their cabin at Cayuse Cove on Lake Roosevelt. They both loved to fish and many hours were spent in the boat on the Roosevelt. In the late fall they frequently pulled the boat to fish Kootenay Lake in British Columbia. The years they didn't go north they would take their motorhome south to Death Valley. It was a favorite area and an opportunity to visit relatives along the way.

Doris was preceded in death by her husband, Ogden, and her two brothers, Jack and Ben Glorfield. Doris is survived by three sisters: Alva May (Don) Jordan of St. John; Lila (John) Novak of St. John; Patsy (Schuster) of Omak; son, Tracy (April) Eriksen of St. John; grandsons Devin Eriksen of Spokane; Kye (Christy) Eriksen of St. John; granddaughter Kimberly (Seth) Miller of Redmond, Wash .; and five great-grandchildren, Aiden and Olivia Eriksen of Spokane and Raif, Dain, and Rylan Miller of Redmond, Wash.

The family suggests memorials to the General Federated Women's Club of St. John Scholarship Fund in the St. John Endicott School Foundation, the St. John Historical Society, or charity of choice.

 

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