Ellen Tena Nutting, 98, passed away Tuesday, April 7, 2015, at Immanuel Lutheran Home in Kalispell.

This is her obituary as she had written it:

I was born May 16, 1916, to Jonas and Lucy Sharpe on a homestead south of Greycliff, Montana, where I attended country schools. 

In March of 1934, I married Arthur Raymond Nutting in Reedpoint, Montana. In 1936, we moved to Ashley Lake where I cooked at Karels Logging Camp next to the lake. In 1954 our small family moved to Eureka where I worked as a cook at the local cafe and at the Eureka creamery. I moved to Kalispell in 1959 and bought my own farm and "did it my way." The many jobs I worked in Kalispell included Johnsons Cafe, Pasttime Bar/cafe, the Hut Cafe and the Blue and White Motel. At the age of 82, I told my employer, “You know that old song, ‘You can take this job and shove it?’ Well I quit!”

I was president of the Ladies World War II Auxiliary for 18 years, president and lifetime member of the 2252 Ladies VFW Auxiliary, member of the Women of the Moose, member of D.A.R., and also a member of the Smith Valley Grange.

For many of years I served, volunteering at the Montana Vets Home, picking up used paper from individuals, cutting out the obits and taking them to the Mormon Church to be recorded and gathering highway trash, for which I received the honor of Senior Citizen of the Year in 1998.

Spring was my favorite time of year; my cows were never hungry and I loved to watch the calves run and play. I also loved to watch my flowers bloom and my gardens grow and I'd been told I had a green thumb.

I loved to dance and play the piano, I collected salt and pepper shakers, receiving many of them as gifts over the years, and I must have had over 150 of them, none of them the same. One of my biggest hobbies was doing genealogy. I'm very proud to say that 99.5% of my family has been catalogued into my records. I had a very big love for my grandchildren. I have seven five-generations in my family. It was nothing for me to drive to Whitefish on a Friday, pick up a carload of grandkids and keep them for the weekend, turn around on Sunday and drive them home; no matter what time of year, rain, sleet, snow, it didn’t matter.

I was preceded in death by my son, Jackie Lee Nutting; my father, Jonas Sharpe; mother and stepfather, Lucy and Walter Cartwright; brother, Ernest Sharpe; sisters, Bessie Jones and Betty Mathis; and grandson, Travis Wartnow.

I am survived by my daughter, Ellen Mae Knopfle; sister, Mary MacDonald; brother, Bob Cartwright; five grandchildren; 15 great-grandchildren; and 10 great-great-grandchildren; and many, many nieces, nephews and cousins.

My nephew has been known to say that I will have everyone and everything in line when it comes time for all of us to make our final journey.

Services will be at 1 p.m. Monday, April 13, at Johnson-Gloschat Funeral Home in Kalispell. Interment will follow at Glacier Memorial Cemetery. Please come and share your favorite memories and stories with us at Smith Valley Grange after interment.

The End — p.s. I was once a butterfly ...

Johnson-Gloschat Funeral Home is caring for Ellen’s family. You are invited to go to www.jgfuneralhome.com to offer condolences and view Ellen’s tribute wall.