"A life well lived and well loved"! Betty D. Pedersen passed away on September 18 ^th in her home of over 60 years at the age of 94.

Betty was born on a farm in Iowa to Lloyd and Emily (Cecil) Parker and was the youngest of four children.

She left the farm after high school graduation and married her childhood sweetheart. They had three beautiful daughters—Beverly, Barbara and Becky Lohrman—fondly referred to as "the thundering herd". When the marriage ended, she came back to Iowa to attend college.  There she met Richard (Dick) Pedersen and they fell in love and married. In 1958, they added Debbie to the family.

Betty and Dick took their growing family and moved to Missoula Montana. There Ricky and Patsy came along.  Just when they thought the family was complete, God gifted them a granddaughter to adopt for their own – Michele.

Whenever you'd ask Mom if a friend could eat over or spend the night, she'd always say "what's one more going to matter".

Betty loved to float the river and did so well into her 80s. She taught all her children the love of travel by loading all of them in the car and heading to Iowa every year and seeing something new on the way.

In between her love of reading, crossword puzzles, scrabble and being with her grandkids, she found the time to work at Montana State Tree Nursery, retiring after many years.

She was her husband's biggest fan attending most of his fiddle gigs and helping out in his garden

Betty was preceded in death by her parents and siblings, daughter Beverly Lohrman, Grandson Joshua Orr, and Granddaughters Lillyen Shields and Lanie Hillard.

Wife, mom, grandma, aunt and friend -- Betty will be missed by her husband (Dick), daughters Barbara Lerum (Steve), Becky Shields (James), Debbie Orr (Jerry), Patsy Clarke (Dave), Michele Pedersen, son Richard Jr Pedersen (Gwen), 11 wonderful grandchildren, and 16 adorable great grandkids.

In lieu of flowers, just "Be kind to each other".