Elsie M. Berger

Elsie M. Berger of Cascade died of natural causes on February 20, 2020, at age 99-3/4 in Great Falls.She was born on May 13, 1920, the third of five girls in seven years to John and Mary Engstrom on a farm near Scobey in northwestern Montana. A celebration of Elsie’s life will be conducted on Sunday, March 8, 2020, at 1 p.m. at United Methodist Church, 3½ 3rd Street North in Cascade.A reception will follow in the Fellowship Hall behind the church. Elsie and her husband Albert resided on the Missouri River beginning in 1982, and their home on Siebold Lane across from the Missouri Inn was the site of many social gatherings.Both involved themselves in community life, extending hospitality to all they encountered. Tall, trim, always stylishly attired and usually bedecked with bright jewelry appropriate—or not, depending on her whim—to the occasion, Elsie an active participant in the goings-on of the canyon south of Cascade, whether it be Bingo or Bunco, knitting or recycling, Red Hat antics or church events.Her bright smile and friendly “hi there” were infectious.Her quick wit and sense of humor were delightful.She was a words-and-numbers genius, a stiff competitor in games especially when the timer was running.She shared the gifts of kindness and generosity and, yes, laughter to those around her. Elsie joined of the Dearborn Garden Club in June of 1984, serving eventually as its president and on many helpful committees;she was an honorary member at the time of her death. Fortuitously, club members had scheduled an outing to visit her at Park Place Nursing Home just this January.Elsie attended many state and regional meetings of the Montana Federation of Garden Clubs representing the DGC and also was an active leader in monthly luncheons with other MFGC Life Members from Cascade County’s combined garden clubs. A self-taught knitter, Elsie became expert and not only won multiple ribbons (many of them blue) from the State Fair for her stunning creations over the years, but she started a local knitting class in 2005.Friends gathered in her living room weekly, sometimes presenting their twisted “conundrums” for her nimble mind and fingers to untangle, accompanied by an explanation of how they got “in” and “out” of anything that had gone awry. Elsie was a talented, caring, devoted person and a long-time member of Cascade Methodist Church.She also had a independent streak with the ability to accomplish anything that she set her mind to do.She loved to travel;one highlight was a trip to Sweden in 1980, but she loved to drive and took road trips as often as she could, easily recruiting pals usually in winter as sidekicks to loop through the northwest to California to see relatives and rounding out in the southwest with friends before heading north again. Elsie once claimed her mother was a “gypsy,” so perhaps that’s how she came by her wonder to wander.As a child, Elsie moved with the family to Richland, a new little town 50 miles west of Scobey, where her dad was the proprietor of the first automobile service station there.In 1931, the family moved to Oregon where she completed elementary and high schools in the Portland area.She reported that she started dating “green” at age 18; after marrying in January of 1941, she gave birth to a daughter, Karren, in 1942. A single parent for a while, Elsie was a welder—“Rosie”-style—at the war shipyards in California’s Bay Area from early 1944 through 1946.Elsie married again in 1950 and the family moved to Nevada, adopting a baby named Kathy Goe (recently deceased).The marriage ended in 1958, however, and Elsie moved back to Portland. Elsie continued working, then at Meier and Franks (now Macy’s)—modeling gloves and rings and, on a commission basis earning $300 a month, in the fabric department—before joining Tektronix, a manufacturer of oscilloscopes for hospital use.It was at that workplace that she met Albert, and they were married on June 28, 1969.They bought a nice home in Beaverton, a suburb of Portland, Oregon, until moving to Fort Shaw and then trading houses for their Cascade-area retirement. A few years ago, Albert and Elsie moved from their beloved riverfront home of forty years into Cascade’s Quiet Day Manor, where Albert preceded her in death.Elsie is survived by her daughter Karren Brown and a sister, Inez Greer; grandchildren:Dennis Cooper, Dave Cooper, Diane Cooper, and Meghan Bartlett; great-grandchildren: Henley Deshler, Dawson Cooper, Eliska Cooper, and Anezka Cooper. Cremation has taken place at her request, entrusted to O’Conner Funeral Home.Family and friends are warmly invited to share memories of Elsie Berger on March 8 in Cascade.