Obituary
Carol Lee Power Gilluly
ANACONDA – Longtime city-county government employee Carol Lee Power Gilluly, residing in the Smelter City for the past 37 years, died December 16 of cancer and complications at her son and daughter-in-law’s home in Idaho Falls. She was 70.
She is a former resident of Stevensville and Missoula.
Family members, including her husband, gathered around her in death. During Carol’s final weeks of illness, her son and daughter-in-law, Shaun and Mary Beth, both medical professionals, tended to her care.
She was born Carol Lee Power July 10, 1942, in Missoula, the daughter of Russell and Eunice Power of Stevensville, who were former residents of Paris, Missouri. Carol’s parents moved to the Bitterroot Valley in 1937. Carol attended grade school and high school in Stevensville, graduating in 1960. She attended Kinman Business College in Spokane, earning a degree in business.
Her first job after graduation from college was as a secretary at the University of Montana News Service in Missoula, where she met her future husband Jack, who worked in the same department. Carol and Jack were married in 1963 at Stevensville. The couple enjoyed 49 years of marriage. Carol is the mother of two children, Shaun and Kelly.
After living in Missoula in the early 1960s, she worked in a succession of towns in Montana and South Dakota. Then, she spent 31 years working for the city-county government in Anaconda-Deer Lodge County.
In 1977, Carol was the first clerk of the city-county commission in the newly-enacted and consolidated Anaconda-Deer Lodge County government, which was the first consolidation of political subdivisions of its type in Montana approved by voters in 1976.
Her organizational skills were well-known. She typed like a house afire, knew shorthand, spelling and grammar and expertly operated office machines. For years, she took minutes of Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Commission meetings.
She liked to cook and collect cookbooks. She compiled family genealogy, and authored two family cookbooks. Her Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter dinners for relatives and friends were consumed with gusto.
Carol was a member of the Teamsters Union, the Red Hats ladies group, and served on the board of directors for the Anaconda Food Bank. She appreciated trips to Paris, Missouri, where her parents grew up. A recent 50th high school reunion of former classmates in Stevensville gave her joy. Along with friends, Carol helped organize the annual Anaconda community-wide Thanksgiving dinner.
On Carol’s side of the family, survivors include husband Jack; son Shaun and daughter-in-law Mary Beth Gilluly of Idaho Falls; daughter Kelly (Gilluly) Weyd and husband Marc of Matthews, North Carolina; sister Margaret Choate and husband Don of Lincoln City, Oregon; two grandchildren, Lexi and Mariah, of Matthews, North Carolina; aunt Pauline Ball of Missoula, aunt Dorothy White of Paris, Missouri, and aunt Terry Parrish of Mexico, Missouri, and numerous nieces, nephews and cousins scattered throughout the nation. On the husband’s side of the family, survivors include Bob Gilluly and wife Mary Ann of Anaconda. Other relatives in Billings include Jack’s sister-in-law Sue Hart, Carol’s long-time friend.
A memorial service was conducted Jan. 3 in Anaconda at the United Methodist Church. Memorials in her memory may be given to the Anaconda Food Bank, Project Care, P.O. Box 1280, Anaconda, Montana.