Obituary: Delores Juedeman

Delores Nadine (Fairbanks) Juedeman passed away on Wednesday, June 19, 2024 at the age of 92, surrounded by her four children, their spouses and her oldest grandson.

Delores was born on August 8, 1931, in Great Falls, Montana to Frank and Henrietta Fairbanks. She grew up in Geraldine, Montana and graduated from Geraldine High School in 1949. Following high school, she attended Montana State College in Bozeman and obtained her bachelor’s degree in nursing. Her education included working for the Deaconess hospital in Great Falls and the Montana State Tuberculosis Sanitarium in Galen, Montana.

After graduation from college, Delores moved to the Big Island of Hawaii, living in Honokaa and working as a nurse at the local hospital. The months in Hawaii were some of the most impactful of her life and began her affinity for Hawaii and an aptitude for playing the ukulele.

In 1955, she moved from Hawaii to San Francisco and worked at Kaiser hospital for a year before returning back home to Montana. She then worked for the American Red Cross and traveled all across the state of Montana in that role. During this period of time Delores was also commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Montana Air National Guard as a Nurse and served for approximately a year.

In October 1957, she married her best friend and love of her life, Harold “Buck” Juedeman in their hometown of Geraldine. They quickly started their family with the birth of their first son, Mark, nine months after their marriage. They farmed in the Graceville area east of Geraldine where they built their own home and welcomed two more sons, Ward and Kevin. Delores was involved in the building of both the new Geraldine Methodist Church as well as the new Geraldine Public School building.

In 1968, Buck and Delores moved to Great Falls where, as a military spouse, Delores cared for their three boys when Buck deployed to Vietnam with the Montana Air National Guard and was subsequently injured in an aircraft mishap.

In 1970, the couple purchased what is now Canyon Cattle Company in Craig, Montana where they had a farming/ranching operation and made many wonderful memories. In 1972 they completed their family with the birth of their daughter, Corry.

Seeing a need in her rural community for improved emergency services, Delores became a First Responder and then an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) in the early 80s. She then helped train dozens of additional First Responders and EMTs throughout the Wolf Creek/Craig/Cascade area and significantly improved the emergency response capacity in these communities.

Delores was incredibly funny, even in the late stages of her disease. She was the life of any gathering and had countless friends in her circle. She was especially close to her fellow military spouses in the Montana Air National Guard and was a founding member of the WACKO group (Women Against Clean Kitchens Organization). She enjoyed not only admiring art but creating it and was a talented painter.

Delores had been a resident of Reflections at Grandview since just before Buck’s death in 2016 where she received extraordinary care and attention. Our family is grateful to all of the staff at Reflections for their professionalism, dedication and love to our mother even until her last moments on this earth.

She is preceded in death by her parents, six siblings, and her husband “Bucky”. She is survived by her sons Mark (Kathy) Juedeman of Helena, Ward (Terry) Juedeman of Trinity, Florida, Kevin (Molly) Juedeman of Craig, and daughter Corry (Todd) Prestidge of Craig. Delores was also a much-loved grandmother, great-grandmother and favorite “Aunt Dee” to many nieces and nephews from both the Fairbanks and the Juedeman families.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made in her name to the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America online at https://alzfdn.org/donate/ or Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, 322 Eighth Avenue, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10001.

Services will be held at the Cascade Methodist Church on Saturday, August 10th at 11 am with a luncheon to follow in the adjacent Fellowship Hall.

Condolences to the family may be shared at http://www.croxfordfuneralhome.com