Diana (Kay) Beaver Gustafson passed into the hands of the Lord on Saturday, Feb. 19, 2011, after a brief illness. <\/p>\n
She was born in Helena to Gus and Nell Bernice Beaver on Sept. 26, 1946. <\/p>\n
Diana was born with Downs syndrome but lived at home with her family during her younger years. She was affectionately nicknamed \u201cDee Dee\u201d by her family and was never treated differently from her younger siblings. She attended Emerson School with her younger siblings for four years. Her first and second grade teachers allowed her to attend and be a part of classroom activities, including the Christmas programs, which was very unusual as there wasn\u2019t a special needs program in the school system at that time. She then attended the Boulder River School where she learned to work in the school\u2019s nursery. Dee Dee came home on holidays to be with her family. When the Boulder River School closed in the 1970s she moved into a group home in Butte. She later moved back to Helena with her family and then moved into a group home and was employed by Helena Industries. <\/p>\n
While Dee Dee was living in Boulder she met the love of her life, Willard Gustafson. He was able to locate her in the group home after she moved to Helena, and they were married on Sept. 24, 1978, in the First Christian Church. They have been faithful members of the church since their marriage and were a special couple who was loved by their pastor and members of their congregation. They were a very close, loving couple during their 32-plus years of marriage, and it was a joy to see them walking together hand in hand through the streets of Helena. <\/p>\n
Her greatest enjoyments in life were creating her latch-hook rugs, her paintings, music and dancing and watching old western movies. She was a very outgoing person who loved to hug everybody and will be dearly missed by all who knew her. <\/p>\n
Dee Dee was preceded in death by her parents. <\/p>\n
She is survived by her husband, Willard; and her siblings and spouses, Don and Jane Beaver of Post Falls, Idaho, Nancy Archer of Billings, Joyce Sturn, Shirley and Keith Herrin, Larry Beaver and Phyllis and Dick Lamping, all of Helena, Mary and Bing Crosby of Tustin Calif., Judy and Corky Harris, John Beaver and Helena and Clarice St. Clair of East Helena. She is also survived by numerous nephews and nieces as well as innumerable great-nephews and great-nieces. <\/p>\n
Cremation has taken place under the care of Retz Funeral Home. Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 23, at the First Christian Church, 311 Power, with a reception following. To offer condolences to the family or to share a memory of Dee Dee, please visit www.retzfuneralhome.com.<\/p>\n","photo":false,"youtube_video_url":"","family_email":"","family_first_name":"","family_last_name":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenafuneralhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/case\/23287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenafuneralhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/case"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenafuneralhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/case"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenafuneralhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenafuneralhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}