Evelyn Harrington Fifield, 94, passed away after a short illness on February 14, 2024 at the Beehive homes in Hamilton, MT.
Her parents came from Ireland and met and married in Butte where Dennis Harrington worked in the mines, and Mary Buckley Harrington worked in the home. Dennis wanted a change and moved the family to a ranch in Stevensville where Evelyn was born, February 7, 1930, the youngest of eight siblings.
She loved the ranch/farm and carried that love throughout her life. Evelyn attended the Old Curlew School and then graduated from Stevensville High School in 1948. By this time, her parents moved to a small farm north of Darby.
On September 9, 1950, she married Charles Fifield and they raised four children on the farm they purchased from her mother. Charles worked in the sawmills and Evelyn tended a large garden, raised chickens and sold milk to dozens of families in the area.
She was active as a 4-H leader and taught many Darby kids how to cook and sew. She was an excellent seamstress and good cook. When we would sit down to a meal she loved to say, “Everything we are eating today came from the farm.”
Evelyn served as President of the St. Francis Catholic Parish Council and was instrumental in the planning and building of St. Philip Benizi Catholic Church in Darby.
She and Charles traveled the United States and cruised to Alaska, but her dream trip was a two week tour to Ireland where she met relatives and was able to retrace the steps of her father..
After losing Charles in 2006, she stayed on and kept up the farm until moving to Hamilton in 2016 and learning to be a city girl. Evelyn was excited to be a ‘pink lady’ at the hospital and enjoyed her time helping people navigate through the corridors. She also worked with the 4-H foundation. Evelyn cared for her home and raised beautiful flowers in the summer and nurtured her African violets throughout the house.
Evelyn was preceded in death by her parents and seven siblings and siblings-in-law, her husband Charles and daughter Cindy Fifield.
Survivors include daughters Julie (Tom) Long, Susan (Paul) Jensen and son Bob (Karen) Fifield, granddaughter Nikki Jensen, and grandsons W.C Fifield and Rob (Donna) Fifield and great granddaughter Locea Fifield. She left many nieces and nephews and friends, especially Janice Heiland.
Funeral services will be held Friday, February 23, 2024 at 11:00 am at the Daly-Leach Chapel with a reception immediately following in the funeral home’s community room. Interment will take place at Lone Pine Cemetery in Darby following the reception. Condolences may be left for the family at www.dalyleachchapel.com.