Vera Dunrud

Posted

(April 19, 2002)

Services will be held 2 p.m. Wednesday, April 24 at Meeteetse's St. Andrew's Episcopal Church for Vera Dunrud, 100, a long-time Meeteetse resident who died April 19 at West Park Long Term Care Center, where she had lived for 13 years.

The Rev. Patterson Keller will officiate Wednesday's services. Visitation will be Tuesday, April 23 at Ballard Funeral Home in Cody from 6-8 p.m.

Dunrud was born Vera May Stahly Jan. 14, 1902 to Herman and Eura Stahly in Milford, Neb. She grew up there and in Goehner, Neb. After graduating and receiving Normal Training at Milford High School, she taught one year at a country school in the area.

In 1923 she came to Meeteetse to teach third and fourth grades at Meeteetse School. She lived with her sister, Luella Rumler, and her sister's husband, Silas Rumler. Later she boarded with the Curtis Sell family and then lived at the Meeteetse Hotel.

On June 19, 1929, she married Carl M. Dunrud in Billings, Mont. Carl's partner, Elmer Bergquist, and his wife Thelma were married the same day. The two couples continued dude ranching, which Carl and Elmer had begun on the Pitchfork Ranch Timber Creek Dude Ranch. In 1931, the couple purchased Kirwin and land six miles down the river where Carl Dunrud built the Double Dee Dude Ranch. There, Amelia Earhart and her husband, George P. Putnam, were among their guests.

During the war, in 1944, Dunrud taught her own three children and a few others at the Dick Creek School on the Wood River above Meeteetse, while Carl worked at the Larsen Ranch. In 1945, she and her husband purchased the Wolf place on the lower Greybull River. She taught school at Buffalo Basin, beginning in 1949, and then in Meeteetse when the two districts were consolidated. She taught there until her retirement in 1970.

After many hours of education by extension courses and summer school, Dunrud received a Bachelor of Arts degree in education from the University of Wyoming in 1962.

Next to her family, she most loved children and teaching. Teaching school, horseback riding, Saturday night dancing and making friends were, as she put it, "a lark."

She was preceded in death by her parents, brothers Eldon and Kenneth Stahly, sisters Fern Stahly, Luella Rumler and Leone Tolle, a baby daughter, a baby granddaughter, and her husband Carl.

She is survived by her children, Richard (and wife Toni) Dunrud of Evergreen, Colo.; James (and wife Joan) Dunrud of Meeteetse; and Mary D. Webster of Cody; nine grandchildren; 10 great-grandchildren; four great-great grandchildren; numerous nieces and nephews and a host of friends.

Memorials may be sent to the Meeteetse High School Scholarship Fund, to St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, where Dunrud was a member, or to a charity of the donor's choice.

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