Anne Amsden Obituary

Anne Margaret Earley Amsden

December 23, 1927 - July 17, 2025

Anne Margaret Amsden, she saw the angel in each of us. No matter your history or the culture you came from, Anne saw you with your greatest potential and grace. No accomplishment was too minor, no contribution insignificant. Anne's belief in you didn't just mean you had a supporter. When someone loves you as fiercely as Anne did, it makes anything feel possible. Anne lived her life with tenacity, humor, kindness, compassion, and intelligence. She leaves a legacy of care, through education, stewardship, and unwavering community spirit.

She was our collective conscience. Whether it was her letters to the editor or her role as Democratic Precinct Chairperson, she stood for what she felt was right in this world, always grounded in equity, human rights, and stewardship of the earth. Her actions always followed her beliefs. Her moral guiding light always shone bright, no matter the opposition she faced or whether others agreed. While she tilted at windmills, she also started every dialogue with grace, kindness, and care.

But don't let that fool you, at cards, word games, or political debate, she was a fierce opponent. An avid member of many Bridge clubs, she taught the game to anyone she could convince, cajole, or corral. She delighted in correcting everyone's grammar, especially with the distinction between lay and lie.

She loved her community, founding the Broadus Tree Board and helping an entire generation of children plant trees throughout Broadus. She saw the restoration of local buildings and watered and weeded community flowerpots to make Broadus a brighter, more pleasant place for all. For years, she served CornerStore breakfasts during fair week, sharing her homemade chokecherry syrup. She organized and hosted a farmers market at the CornerStore, providing a space for the community's home-grown vegetables and baked items. She welcomed all into her home, with coffee always brewing and food at the ready for family and friends.

Anne loved to travel and brought home recipes to recreate the foods she discovered for friends and family. She loved gardening and growing vegetables, which became the palette for the healthy foods she prepared for Lyman and anyone who might stop by. Her goal was always 10,000 steps a day for health and longevity.

Anne Margaret Earley Amsden was born to Lester Eardling Earley and Lillian Veronica Haasl on December 23, 1927, in Miles City, Mont., the fifth of eight children, six girls, Betty, Helen, Anne, Leigh, Margaret, and Kay; and two boys, John and Buck. Daughter of a music teacher turned homesteader and a Canadian immigrant, she began her life at the Marston place in Powderville. In 1934, they lost the Marston place and returned to her mother's homestead.

When Lester joined the Army Transport Service to support his family, Anne and her siblings moved to Miles City for school. They lived on Lake Street so they could have a cow. At Christmas, each little girl received a doll, training, they said, to be a good mother.

Anne graduated the 8th grade from Sacred Heart School in Miles City in 1941 and returned to her mother's homestead on the Powder River. They were to go to school in Broadus for her freshman year, but she and her sisters grew weary of the 20-mile drive each way and moved to a tiny house in Broadus. Anne took her sophomore year by correspondence. Alone at home with her mother and sisters, Anne, being the oldest, had to feed and milk cows, feed pigs and chickens, and collect firewood. In her 70s, she still knew how to drive a horse and buggy, and gee and haw.

Later, her father leased a small acreage on Third Street in Missoula so Helen could go to college, and the younger girls continued schooling in town. On the way to Missoula, their truck blew a tire near Gold Creek and overturned into the river. One cow drowned, and the pigs scattered. She remembered her father putting the cow out of its misery as their belongings floated down the river.

Anne completed her two-year degree in Education in Billings. She taught in Poplar, Rapelje, and Red Lodge, Mont., and Powell, Wyo. She taught for four years in Oceanside, Calif. Eventually, homesick, she returned to Billings to teach. She taught in Broadus for one year and then at St. Labre, where she administered the Title I programs, writing numerous grants to support student success. She obtained her master's degree in administration from the University of Montana and later became principal in Fort Worth, Texas, Lame Deer, Mont. and eventually back at St. Labre. She retired in 1993 after 25 years at St. Labre.

To Anne, every child was capable of learning and reading, they just needed to find the right way. Her students and coworkers recall her kindness, intelligence, and support in pursuit of learning. She studied in New Zealand to learn a new reading methodology to use in her classrooms and in tutoring students after school.

In 1949, Anne married Sam House and welcomed a son, Jimmy, in 1950. When their marriage ended, Anne raised Jimmy while continuing to teach. She became reacquainted with her brother John's good friend, Lyman Amsden, who remembered her as a sight to see coming up the road. Lyman spent the rest of his life at her side. They married and welcomed Julie (1959), John (1961), and Jackie (1964), and Lyman adopted Jimmy.

She memorized stories and poems and recited them to her kids and grandkids. From Eugene Field's Little Boy Blue, she'd intone the toy dog and toy soldier missing their boy master, "What has become of our Little Boy Blue, since he kissed them and put them there?" (He dies of cholera.) She'd laugh as tears welled up in our eyes. Perhaps because she herself experienced great loss, such as losing Jimmy to a car accident in 1978, she fought grief with humor and never shirked from adversity. We invite you to experience her unique, loving and caring yet oddly morbid sense of humor by listening to podcasts she recorded in 2015, available here, https://amsdens.podbean.com/.

With her brothers Lester and John living on her parents' homesteads, Anne and her family spent lifetimes at the ranch with cousins, nieces, nephews, and friends, raising their kids to value family. At Sunday dinners at the John Earleys', politics were argued and voices raised in raucous agreement while playing cards. The kids played into the late hours, games of Red Light / Green Light, Red Rover, and Run Sheep Run.

Anne curated her family stories, committing them to paper and artistic family trees and seeking out relatives who, if not for her dedication to inclusion, would have faded to footnotes in a journal. After decades of separation, she reconnected with lost cousins who had left their homestead after the death of their mother. Her delight in listening to each person's life story, along with Lyman's death in 2024, led her children to establish the Kingsley History Project, an evolving collection of origin stories based in Broadus, Mont. She served on the board of the Kingsley History Project and would ask anyone she met if they had heard of Kingsley.

As grandchildren came along, Anne spent many hours traveling to various activities to support them. Seeing each of their accomplishments as an incredible achievement, she was ever loving, and ever supportive.

Anne adored and sincerely appreciated her caregivers and her roommates at the Powder River Manor, where she spent the last four years of her life. She enjoyed visits from friends and family, especially her great-grandbabies. At the Manor, Anne continued to have special friends who helped her fight the good fight, reading with her, sharing her love of books and intellectual discourse, wheeling her home to enjoy the house she and Lyman built, and sharing laughs over her wry wit and cutting insights. Anne's philosophy was, "Work for peace always. Do no harm. Love one another. Take care of the poor. Seek justice for all. Take care of the earth." She said, "I love you," at every parting.

Anne is preceded in death by her parents, her husband, Lyman; her son, Jim House; all her siblings, all her cousins, and all her sisters- and brothers-in-law.

She is survived by her children, Julie Riley (John) of Volborg, John Amsden (Marianne) of Bozeman, Jackie Slovak (Dave) of Missoula, and Jim's widow Toni House of Belgrade; grandchildren, Brandon (Shay) and Peter House, Jerry Lei, Elizabeth Reierson (Philip), Kathryn Copelan (Kyle), James Riley (Bailee), Solomon (Sam), Lucy, Jack, and Jett Amsden, and Emily Weber; great-grandchildren, Cheyenne, Cash, Rowdy, Sophia House, Cole Counts, Wesley Copelan, Madelyn, Lyman, and Rylan Reierson; great-great-granddaughter, Finley Salisbury; and countless nieces, nephews, and extended family. She loved each and every one.

In lieu of gifts or flowers, the family invites donations to the Kingsley History Project, available at https://bit.ly/kingsleymontana. Honor Anne by planting a tree, learning Bridge, sharing good coffee with friends, reading insightful books, and above all, loving one another.

Anne's funeral Mass will be held at the Amsden family home in Broadus, Mont., at 10 a.m. on Friday, August 29. A reception and Earley family reunion will follow.