Marita Mae Moles

Marita Mae Moles, 94, of Hamilton MT passed away June 11 at St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula. A Celebration of Life will be held at the Daly-Leach Chapel 1010 W Main St in Hamilton, Montana at 3 p.m. on Friday, July 25th . The youngest of three children she was born in 1930 on a farm near Milford, Iowa to Elmer and Bernice Clifford. Marita loved her childhood experiences on the farm. She often rode Dolly, her beloved horse, to the country school. She always spoke fondly of her father. A favorite story was about when she was in middle school and she forgot to set the brake on the tractor and it rolled down the hill coming to stop with the front wheels in the wooden water trough. Her father said something like, “These things happen. I just want to take a picture of you on the tractor in the water trough.” Her amazing common sense grew out of experiences such as that. As a sharp shooter she made the high school six-on-six basketball team even while still in junior high school (Google six-on-six basketball in Iowa, it is interesting and was played there till 1993). She worked the wheat harvest from Texas to Alberta, Canada with her new husband and her greatly loved in-laws with their early vintage self-propelled combine, often sleeping on the grain in the bed of the truck she drove. She occasionally raced a stock car on a half mile dirt track. In the early sixties she moved with her family to the Bitterroot Valley in Montana after living in a remote high desert area of Nevada where her husband was the foreman of a large ranch while she managed a small store and café on the ranch. She could often beat her sons when playing HORSE, the basketball shooting game. She worked at People’s Market in Darby and at W.T. Grant and K-Mart in Missoula. She had a dresser drawer full of “Employee of the Month” plaques, yet she never displayed them. In 1947 she married Laythol Quaintance in Jackson Minnesota. She dearly loved their five children and the three generations that came along. After over 20 years that marriage ended because Laythol was often away pursuing his next adventure. In 1971 she married Dale Moles of Darby. They had a deeply loving beautiful relationship until his death in 2004. Marita is survived by her children, Linda (Wally) Zimmer of Superior, Mont., LaDonna (Doug) Thomas of Boise, Idaho; Duane (Carolyn) Quaintance of Hamilton, Mont.; Daryl Quaintance of Avila Beach, Calif., and Dennis (Nancy) Quaintance of Greensboro, N.C.; eight grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren, 9 great-great grandchildren and many nieces, nephews and cousins.