Elizabeth
"Betty" (Elsh) Coolidge, 89, of Shelby, a retired schoolteacher, died of
heart failure September 18 at the Kalispell Regional Medical Center.
Her memorial service is 2 pm,
Saturday Oct. 28 at the United Methodist Church in Shelby.
She is survived by her sons, Del Coolidge of Vancouver,
Wash. and James Coolidge of Bigfork; her daughter, Sara Jane Martin of Hood
River, Ore., five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Pep, in 1998.
Betty was born June 19, 1917, in Philadelphia to Roy and
Sara Elsh. She grew up in Denver and graduated from the University of Denver
after teaching one year in a one-room school in Eastern Colorado. In 1940, she
married E.D. "Pep" Coolidge and she moved to the Kevin-Sunburst oilfield where
Pep was employed by the family's oil business. In 1952, the family moved to
Shelby where they raised their three children.
Mrs. Coolidge was a strong advocate for public education,
teaching elementary school in Shelby for fifteen years and establishing central
libraries for both elementary and middle schools. She took an early retirement
in 1977, after Pep suffered his first heart attack.
Mrs. Coolidge was a life-long member of the Methodist Church
and taught Sunday school for many years. As an avid reader, she belonged to the
Shelby Book Club for over forty years. She was very active in the local Delta
Kappa Gamma, a professional educators' sorority. She was a member of Daughters
of the Nile and Eastern Star. She enjoyed the Shelby Garden Club and had been a
member of Shelby Soroptimists. In past years, she served on the Toole County
Hospital Board and continued with its Auxiliary. Betty had been an active member
of the Shelby community until the time of her death.
Donations in her memory can be made to
either the Crippled Children's Hospital in Spokane or the Toole County Library
in Shelby.