By HDN Staff
BIG SANDY Bertrand Paul Stack, 87, died Thursday, Oct. 25, 2001, of cancer at a Big Sandy nursing home.
Funeral services will be 11 a.m. Tuesday at Christ Lutheran Church in Big Sandy. Burial will follow at the Highland Cemetery in Great Falls at 3 p.m.
Bert was born March
13, 1914, to Fred and Ellen (Nellie) McKeon Stack on the old Carter place south of Big Sandy. Fred worked for Virgille Blankenbaker and soon the family moved north of Highway 87 and 15 miles west of Big Sandy. There Fred proved up on some land and had a homesteader shack built. Bert grew up there and attended school at the Mr. Vernon country school. He took two years off from school to work in the CCCs and graduated from Big Sandy High School in 1935. Bert remembered working on the Blankenbaker farm from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. for a dollar a day plus room and board and all the money going to his family.
He married Lucille Schlack, whose family lived nearby, on Nov. 21, 1940. The couple remained on the farm when the elder Stacks moved to the Fairfield area. They then bought land two miles east, one mile south of the Inga store, where they lived for the next 39 years. They built a new home on the property in the 1950s that still remains there.
Bert was a diligent worker who took pride in his equipment and the farm and is remembered by all as being mild and even-tempered, patient and kind. Days were spent farming. In the evenings, they enjoyed attending dances at the Spring Coulee Club House and visiting and playing cards with their friends and family. They traveled quite a lot, to visit their children in Oregon, Utah and California, and to Canada and Europe. The older grandchildren came to spend time during the summer with Grandpa and Grandma on the farm and remember riding with Grandpa on the tractor or combine. in 1982, the couple retired and moved into the Schlack home in Big Sandy, where they lived until just recently.
Bert was preceded in death by his parents; brothers, Harold and Gerald; son, Gary Willis Stack, who died when he was 12.
Survivors include his wife, Lucille Stack; brother, Chester Stack of Stanwood, Wash.; sister, Marie Ferris of Choteau; sons, Francis Stack of Chester and Don Stack of Aliso Viejo, Calif.; seven grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.
Memorials may be made to Christ Lutheran Church, Big Sandy Medical Center, or a cancer society of donor's choice.
Benton Funeral Home is handling the arrangements.
