Dorothy Hall Hurlbut passed away on July 10, 2022, in Helena, Montana. She was 95 years of age. Dorothy was born to Henry and Mary Hall at Columbus Hospital in Great Falls on November 21, 1926, and grew up on her parents’ homestead farm which had expanded onto prairie holdings NE of Stanford. All her life she carried an abiding fondness for the open land and sky. She recounted the good times and bad in her memoir, “Prairie Cactus.”
Dorothy began taking piano lessons when she was six, and music became an important aspect of her life. She enjoyed her school years in Stanford where she and her friends shared sodas at the corner drugstore, often compliments of Dorothy who had a paying job playing piano with the Haker and Kolar bands. They performed each Saturday in different Judith Basin towns including Geyser, Stanford, Windham, and Utica.
Dorothy met “Johnny” Hurlbut on the steps of St. Ann’s Cathedral and they were married in November 1947. Together they designed and built a house on Fourth Avenue South where four boys were raised. Dorothy taught piano and played for weddings and funerals. She was secretary and church musician at Holy Family Parish for 25 years. In 1992, after John’s retirement from the Forest Service, they moved to Dorothy’s old family home in Stanford. She offered piano lessons to the local kids.
Her prairie childhood inspired Dorothy to maintain a “herd” of ten cows that ran with the lessee’s cattle for decades. She often mentioned it was best we have no control over nature.
Dorothy and John lived their later years in Helena, near three of their sons. She was preceded in death by her husband John and sister Roberta. She will be missed by her many friends; her brother, Vince; sons, Michael, Mark, Bruce, Kevin (Lisa); and grandchildren, Luc (Sarah), Kate, and Adam.
Mass will be held at 11:00 a.m. at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Stanford on Thursday, July 14, 2022. A reception will be held at the church after burial.
