Alicemarian “Alice” Flesher
Alicemarian “Alice” Flesher, age 103, died peacefully in her sleep at the Idaho Veterans’ Home in Post Falls on April 11, 2025.
She leaves a large extended family for whom she had always been a consistent and loving presence. Alicemarian, always to her maternal family, but Alice to most others, was born on her grandmother’s homestead near Billings, Montana, on Feb. 4, 1922.
Her only sibling and sister, Ruth, was born exactly five years later to share the same birthday. During her childhood, largely during Depression years, her family moved quite often in Wyoming and Montana where her mother, Pauline Hill Clifford, and her father, Joseph Tillman Brandon “Brandon,” could find work. Pauline always worked as a cook and caregiver.
Brandon was once caught running a still by the “Revenuers” and thus became a blacksheep to some of Alicemarian’s family. They spent several years in Nashua for work on the Fort Peck Dam, enduring bitingly cold winters and sweltering summers. Brandon worked there as a pipe fitter. During World War II he worked in the shipyards in Seattle. Alice met her husband, Irvin “Jim” James Flesher, in Nashua in high school. They married during the war, Aug. 4, 1943, in Libby, Montana, and their marriage lasted lovingly for 68 years.
Alice was perfect in Jim’s eyes. Jim had entered the war just a few days after Pearl Harbor and worked as an airplane mechanic. Alicemarian attended a Catholic nursing school in Havre for three years, graduating in 1944. She entered the Army Nursing Corps as a Second Lieutenant, no basic training required, in February, 1945, and served at the Dibble General Hospital in San Diego until war’s end; there she treated burn patients returning from the Pacific theatre.
Jim and Alice lived most of their married lives in Libby, Montana, where Jim worked as a mechanic at the J. Neils Lumber Company and later in his own business Jim’s Lineup Shop. They were long-time members of St Joseph’s Catholic Church.
Alice worked many years as a surgical nurse for Dr. Woodrow Nelson and later Dr. Roger H. Brus. After 18 years with Dr. Brus, Jim persuaded her to finally retire so they could travel and dance. They were both avid, skilled square and round dancers and once traveled in their van to Louisville, Kentucky, to a national jamboree.
Alice also took up oil painting, taught herself, and became quite skilled. Her many oil paintings, mostly landscapes, were distributed to family members over the years and decorated her room at the Vets’ Home. After a few years on the road and during the winter at Quartzite, Arizona, they moved to Hauser, Idaho, to be near family.
Jim died in 2011 at age 91 and Alice moved eventually to Bestland in Coeur d’Alene, until needing additional help at the age of 98. For the next two years her three daughters shared care for her in their homes.
Her Army service during WWII and her advanced age facilitated her acceptance as the first resident of the local Idaho Veterans’ Home in 2023. There she enjoyed bingo, collecting stuffed animals, listening to stories, attending nearly every Chapel offering and doing crossword puzzles with her daughter.
Alicemarian is survived by her sister Ruth Eckberg, Aurora, Illinois; her children Paula Neils (John), Hauser, Idaho; Barbara Camp, Libby, Montana; Julie English (Dan), Quincy, Washington; and Richard Flesher(- Bobbi), Yaak, Montana; 16 grandchildren and numerous great- and great-great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews.
She was preceded in death by her husband Jim, great-grandson Ross Sciarrotta V, great-granddaughter Adelyn Sather, and great-gre-grandson Acton Westlund.
A family remembrance will be held at a later date. A Celestial Discharge and a memorial service were held at the Idaho Veterans’ Home. The family is deeply grateful for the loving care administered to her by the staff and Chaplain Larry there for over two years.