Connie Rydvall
Connie Rydvall (Constance Raye Rydvall) passed away Monday, March 19, 2012, at Tri-State Memorial Hospital due to many health complications. She was 71 years old.
Connie was born Constance Raye Schilling Jan. 18, 1941, in Orofino. She was the middle of three daughters of Haven and Alice Potter. Connie was raised at Johnsons Mill just outside of Orofino. The years Connie spent there were the best years of her life. She spent the days riding her horses throughout the hills and meadows with her sister Florie and a cousin. Connie graduated high school from Priest River in 1959 and quickly married. Strange enough, they divorced in 1964 through a letter in the newspaper because she simply didn't know where to contact him.
After the divorce, Connie moved back to Johnsons Mill to take care of her mother Alice for a short time. She then moved to Boise to work at the Lamp Post Restaurant in the Best Western Hotel. Connie frequently traveled back and forth from Boise to Johnsons Mill to take care of her mother and two children.
In 1963, Connie moved to Lewiston with her two children and started working as a clerk at the Foodland Grocery Store. In 1963, she started working at Buttrey's Super Market in the Lewiston Shopping Center. While living in Lewiston, Connie met her next husband. They married in 1964 and divorced in 1990. Connie and her husband moved to Hood River, Ore., for two years, then moved back to Lewiston where Connie returned to Buttrey's until 1978. Connie worked at Dodd's Grocery Store up until 1981 when she found her dream job at the Strike and Spare and worked there for the next 25 years. Connie made a home at the Strike and Spare and made many lifelong friends, including one who Connie always thought of as one of her kids. Connie retired in 2006, but always wished she was still working at the Strike and Spare. She always took better care of everybody else than herself.
Connie's health took a turn for the worse after retirement and she started dialysis in 2007. During her final years, Connie spent a lot of her free time with her family and enjoying her several animals. Connie loved animals and had several cats, dogs, birds and fish that she loved to take care of. Bob's Tropical Fish was her favorite place to go and look for the next fish or decoration that she could add to her 100-gallon fish tank. For the past three and a half years she was at her residence her son. During the last months of her life, Connie lived with her daughter and son-in-law.
Connie is survived by her two children and her grandson who was the light of her life. They shared a very close bond with each other. She is also survived by her cousin who was there when she needed her.
She was preceded in death by her mother and father, Haven (Shorty) and Alice Potter and her sisters, Florie Mullikin and Minette Lafay.
At her request, no funeral will be conducted. Instead, there will be a celebration of life at 1 p.m. April 7 at the Moose Lodge, 814 Sixth St., Clarkston. Following cremation at Mountain View Funeral Home, Connie will be taken to Johnsons Mill for her final resting place.
Connie and her family would like to thank the Strike and Spare, the dialysis crews in Lewiston and Clarkston, special thanks to those special ones for everything they did for Connie from Tri-State Memorial Hospital ER and the Lewiston and Asotin County ambulance crews.
Lewiston Tribune, March 25, 2012, p. 7C
Transcribed by Jill Leonard Nock