By HDN Staff
ESTHER BECK
HARLEM Esther Margaret Beck, 95, died Sunday, Dec. 10, 2000 at a Havre hospital from natural causes.
Funeral services will be held at the American Lutheran Church in Harlem at 2 p.m. Friday. Burial will follow in the Harlem Cemetery.
Beck was born Jan. 4, 1905 to Louis and Margrethe (Thorson) Williams at her parents' farm near Thief River Falls, Minn.
She took teacher's training her senior year of high school. She taught for several years in four country schools near Thief River Falls.
In 1925, she married Alvin LaSalle; they later divorced.
In the 1930s, she attended Bemidji Normal Training College for classes in education.
She moved to Montana at the invitation of her great-uncle, Erling Thorson. She attended Northern Montana College so she could teach in Montana. Some of her teaching positions included the Svendsen School west of Hogeland, three schools in eastern Montana, then Glasgow, Turner and Harlem.
She married August Beck on June 7, 1943 in Oakland, Calif., where he was working in the shipyards. They moved back to Montana in 1945 and farmed near Hogeland for many years. They made their home in Harlem.
They were instrumental in starting the American Lutheran Church in Harlem. She played the piano and organ for 25 years for the church before her retirement.
Beck's hobbies included music, sewing, crocheting and reading.
She was preceded in death by her parents, three sisters, three brothers, and her husband, August Beck, who died in 1992.
Survivors include her daughter, Ellen Svendsen of Great Falls; sons, Donald LaSalle of Anoka, Minn., Erling LaSalle of Kalispell, Eugene Beck of Chinook, Arlo Beck of Calgary, Alberta, Canada; 15 grandchildren; 14 great-grandchildren; seven great-great-grandchildren.
Memorials may be made to the American Lutheran Church in Harlem or Hogeland.
Arrangements are by Edwards Funeral Home of Chinook.
