Flora Emily Hoffman Wissenbach Beck

PINESDALE-Flora Beck, 98, died Thursday, March 11, 2010 at home in Pinesdale, Ravalli County, Montana. She was born Sept. 22, 1911 in Bolton, Massachusetts, the fourth of five children born to Erhard Hoffman and Marie Emilie Morgner, both immigrants from Germany. As a little girl, she insisted on having her own cow to milk like the older family members, before the days of milking machines, on their beautiful farm. She told of riding the several miles to the 2-room school buildings in a horse-drawn school barge, with the older children having to walk up the hills to relieve the horses.

The family later moved to nearby Clinton so the parents could work in the textile mills. Flora was a member of the German Congregational Church. She graduated from Clinton High School and later from Framingham (MA) State Teacher's College in 1933 as a dietician.

In July, 1933, she married Charles Frederick Wissenbach (1908-1959) of Clinton who had come from Germany in his youth with his parents. Charles and Flora raised four children in Bolton: Charles Erhard (now of Pinesdale, MT) Robert Frederick (now of Florida), Christine Johanna Minshall/Gilmore (deceased, formerly of Boise), and Richard William (now of Lexington, MA). Her second marriage was to Bill Beck (1911-1984) of Clinton.

She retired as a dietician from Worcester (MA) City Hospital, making her home in Clinton, MA. Her senior years have been spent living with family in Boise, ID, Sunnyvale, CA and Pinesdale, MT. She lived a simple, frugal life, and as a result, even though she never held a highly paid position, she always was able to pay cash for her cars and for her modest house. Retirement pleasures included race walking, crocheting, knitA