Inez Meehan

Inez Johnson Meehan, 84, registered nurse, died Feb. 4, 2004 at home in Oak Harbor, of Alzheimer disease. She was born July 27, 1919 on a dryland farm a few miles from the small town of Fairview, Montana. She began school at a one room country school where her mother was the teacher. Later, she rode the school bus to Fairview where she attended high school graduating in 1936. The same year she traveled to Billings, Montana enrolling at Polytechnic Institute, a small self-help college where just about every student worked part-time to help pay for tuition and room and board.The college had a very large farm raising most of their food for the students and staff. After graduation in 1938, she went to Minneapolis, Minn. for her hospital training where she graduated in June of 1941. She then returned to the family farm. In August the same year she married her college sweetheart Emmett Meehan who by then was working as a telegraph operator for the Northern Pacific Railroad. His job made it necessary for him to move from town to town.  When they moved to Huntley, Mont., she was able to go to work at Deaconess Hospital in the nearby city of Billings. She worked for the hospital for 25 years retiring in 1977. She was preceded in death by her younger brother Buddy and her parents Christ and and Bessie Johnson.

She is survived by her brother Melvin and sister Eleanor,  her husband Emmett of Oak Harbor and four sons, Robert (Patricia) Colorado Springs, Co,  Richard (Robyn) and Donald of Whidbey Island; and Dennis (Kristina) of Sydney, Australia. She is grandmother to seven grandchildren Kim, Karen, Rebecca, Tonya, Jason, Nathan and Christopher. Two great-granddaughters, Shelby and Emma.

Inez loved fishing and traveling. Her fishing favorite spot was Martinsdale Reservoir in Montana. She and Emmett did a lot of traveling around the country and went to Arizona sometimes for the winter months.They traveled around the world for two years visiting Robert, then working in Saudi Arabia for the Army Corps of Engineers. Their 40 days in the desert was like living during biblical times. They spent three months in Australia visiting son Dennis and family and traveled around half of that country visiting such places as the opal mines and the  Great Barrier Reef. On the way back to Seattle from London, flying over the top of the world route, they stopped at Anchorage, Alaska to visit Richard and family.  Dancing and church activities were also very important in her life.

A celebration of her life will be held on Saturday, Feb. 21, at 2 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 1050 SE Ireland St. Memorials may be made to Nurses Alumnae Association Scholarship Fund at 1801 Stinson Blvd, New Brighton, MN 55112.