Doreen Nita Cavin

Doreen Nita Cavin passed away at her home in Whitefish on Wednesday, May 14.

The daughter of Ivan and Darlene Ibsen, Doreen grew up in Whitefish, graduated from the University of Montana in Missoula, taught high school in Seeley Lake for one year before moving to San Francisco, where she worked as a legal secretary and met her husband, Ben Cavin. In the Bay Area, she raised three children and worked as a special education teacher. In retirement she returned to her childhood home in Whitefish.

Along the way, she made many friends. A neighbor child once wrote her a note that said, “You are the nice lady.” While Doreen was loved by all those who knew her, she was also feared by those who had to play “spoons” with her. Her sweetness would vanish when playing cards. Her children learned to swear from hearing her play “Nertz.” Her great-nieces discovered early that she showed no mercy, and some opponents have the scars to prove it.

Doreen sang at weddings, memorials and in the local Christ Lutheran Church choir-and in 1962, at the Seattle World’s Fair. She loved wildlife, local politics, arm wrestling, drinking wine with her friends, listening to country music, making lefse with her brother, and taking care of her animals, including chickens. She was particularly fond of a plecostomus fish that outgrew the fish tank, so she gave it to the San Francisco Aquarium, bought herself an annual pass, and visited the fish there.

She lived well, and with humor. In her garden, she grew hollyhocks, violets, and bleeding hearts, and there, planted among them, was a cement human leg. Inside the house, amidst beautiful art and handcrafted ceramics, you might find a glass eyeball, staring creepily. On the fridge, she posted a reminder: “Tell someone you love them today, because life is short. But shout it at them in German, because life is also terrifying.”

At Christmas, she decorated cookies and gave them to her neighbors, friends, and family. On New Year’s Eve, she danced at the Whitefish Moose Lodge and started snowball fights with revelers downtown. Every Memorial Day, she placed flowers on the graves of many relatives. Each winter, she and her friends put on costumes for the “Penguin Plunge” and jumped in the frozen Whitefish Lake to raise money for Special Olympics-and also, we surmise, just because she thought, “What a crazy thing for humans to do!” She started a tradition of wearing a disguise whenever picking someone up from the airport-joke sunglasses, animal noses, Halloween costumes when it wasn’t Halloween. When her kids flew home for the holidays, she and Ben could be seen standing in the Kalispell airport, donning black ski masks and waiting ominously for their arriving children.

Doreen loved Whitefish, loved her home on the lake, her many classmates from Whitefish High class of 1962, and that so many still reside in Whitefish. She never passed an opportunity to welcome people into her home. The door was always open and the fridge always stocked. She loved it that the ice fishermen would use the trail down to the lake to fish. Animals, too, were treated well, including the wild turkeys that hung around on the patio, waiting impatiently for sunflower seeds. Her generosity stopped at the squirrels that tried to get into her birdfeeders.

She was an advocate, supporter, and friend of people in need. For years she accepted collect calls from a young man with cognitive disabilities struggling in the California prison system. After she retired, she worked part-time for Youth Dynamics in Kalispell. In 2013 she was elected president of the local chapter of Soroptimist International, an organization devoted to improving the lives of women and girls.

Doreen is survived by her husband, Ben; brother Richard Ibsen and sister-in-law Mary Ann; daughter, Lise; sons, Andrew and Aaron; daughter-in-law, Katie Krieger; aunts, Irene Thorstensen and Henrietta Ibsen; nephew, Mitchell Ibsen and wife Erika; niece, Lacey Ibsen, and a world of extended family, friends and loved ones.

A memorial service will be held Saturday, July 12, at 1 p.m. at Christ Lutheran Church in Whitefish. A reception will follow. Instead of flowers, please go jump in a lake-or just donate to the Special Olympics (http://www.somt.org/donate/, or Special Olympics Montana, PO Box 3507, Great Falls, MT 59403).