Elizabeth Marie Sias

Elizabeth Marie Sias

Elizabeth Marie Sias died peacefully in her beloved little log cabin home in Bonners Ferry the evening of Nov. 23, 2019, at age 102. She was surrounded by the loving members of Auburn Hospice, as well as longtime friends, Jerry Dyer and members of the Seaman family. Also present, and hugely instrumental in organizing the last two months of skilled, amazing care was Judy Scrivseth of Bonners Ferry, whose loving compassion and wise, sweet sense of humor and friendship comforted and cheered Elizabeth in her last months.

“Betty” and her husband Erwin Sias (“Si”) arrived in Bonners Ferry from Sioux City, Iowa, in the fall of 1978 after Si had retired as Editor of the Sioux City Journal. Both longing to return to Idaho, where they had occasionally vacationed, they sent a lawyer friend out to scout out the northern area of the state, and to find them a log cabin with acreage near Montana and Idaho trout streams. The story goes that the lawyer returned only to grimly report that within their specified price range, and with the number of acres they wanted, only a very old ramshackle cabin with 12 acres in Bonners Ferry was available. He showed them pictures, and both of them laughed and yelled: “YES!!! We’ll take it!”

Rustic living was exactly what they both loved. Si, a member of several Outdoor Writers’ Associations, and avid fisherman who tied his own flies and made his own rods, was able to pursue that hobby as well as woodworking, as for a few years, he restructured the old cabin.

Elizabeth threw herself into her major passion by creating what would eventually be 12 huge gardens, several with rock walls composed of rocks she has laboriously dug from her own property. (She was a “Master Gardener” long before such creatures officially existed.) Years later, when her daughter Toni Hollingsworth and her husband Tom moved to Bonners Ferry and created Holly Gardens, Elizabeth and Toni joyfully created a huge bouquet to sell on weekends for $3! She was in heaven.

Elizabeth was predeceased by her husband Si in 1996, and thanks to many neighbors [Ashbys, Dyers (Jerry and Kathryn), (and Bunny Hodges and Peggy Dyer), Mike Fascia and his wife, and the Seaman family as well as Katie Landis] she was able to fulfill her dream of aging alone comfortably in her little cabin. She had never learned to drive, and their generous help was immeasurable.

She is survived by daughter Nancy Sias of Carroll Valley, Pa., and daughter Toni Hollingsworth and her husband Thomas of Cape Cod, Mass., as well as his children, Andrea Toomey and Marc Hollingsworth.

Elizabeth was a self-proclaimed atheist and requested no formal service. However, her oldest daughter Nancy is planning a small, private celebration of her life and gardens in late summer or early fall in Bonners Ferry. Elizabeth would approve.