Lila Mabel Middleton

04/20/1934 – 09/15/2021

Lila Mabel Middleton ("Granny") was born April 20, 1934 in her grandparents' farm house in Monroe, WA to Avery and Alice Lehman. She passed away peacefully on September 15, 2021 at home surrounded by her family.  She leaves daughters: Irene (Alan) Weiland, and Dena Brown of Ione, and Patty (Jeff) Schwab of Spokane; 7 Grandchildren: Morgan Rice of Stanwood, WA, Eli (Kellie) Rice of Colville, Roger Brown of Cheney, Ronald (Krista) Brown of Ione, Robert (Anna) Brown of Metaline Falls, Evan (Emma) Schwab of Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island, and Sophia (Matthew) DeAnda of Nampa, Idaho; 15 Great grandchildren; 6 great-great grandchildren;  Lila's sister Donna Wuesthoff of Nine Mile Falls, WA, and numerous nieces and nephews.

Preceding her in death are her husband John, her parents Avery and Alice Lehman, grandson John Brown, and great grandson Connor Rice.

Graveside services will be held on Saturday, October 2, at 1:00 p.m. at the Ione Riverside Cemetery.  Due to continuing COVID and social distancing issues, there will be no reception after the services.

At an early age, Lila lived in Bremerton, WA then her family relocated to a farm outside of Addy, WA. She attended grade school at a small 2-room schoolhouse, then finished school at Jenkins High in Chewelah.  After graduation, she married Robert Ames and they had two daughters, Irene and Dena.  Bob passed away when the girls were 6 and 4 years old.  Almost two years later, Lila was introduced to John Middleton on a blind date arranged by her sister Donna and brother-in-law Louis Bell.  After several months, John and Lila married "all three ladies", and Lila and the girls moved to Ione. Soon after John legally adopted the girls.  They initially lived in a house in Ione, and daughter Patty was born during that time. A few years later the family moved to the ranch at Tiger.  In 1988, they built a log home on John's parents' property in the Chippewa District just outside of Ione. They resided there until their passing.  John passed on 10-8-2020 and Lila missed him so much.  On September 8, 2021, it would have been their 60 ^th wedding anniversary.

Lila was a homemaker and contributed to the community in many ways. She was a Girl Scout Leader, 4-H leader (with John), member of the NPOV Lions Club, the Rebekkah's Lodge, and TOPS, and very involved with the Pend Oreille County Historical Society, and the genealogy club in the north county.  She supported John when he began to do research and gather necessary information to start up a fire district. With the information in hand, and with the help of two other north county men, they started the Fire District 2 in north Pend Oreille County.  Mom also accompanied John when he attended many Cattlemen's Association meetings.

Lila and John spent many hours working on the farm. In the early days, they remodeled the house to make it more livable. The hay fields needed planting and harvesting, animal pens and fences built, the barn and corrals needed repairs. Then the animals started arriving – horses, cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, and all of those needed tending. Depending on the shift John worked, it was up to Lila and the girls to take care of things when John wasn't available.   There were a lot of fun times on the ranch too.  Little did the girls know that when they were in school during the day, if there were times when the tractors were needed to accomplish tasks on the farm, John and Lila were out racing tractors.

Lila always wanted to look perfect and be ready for any occasion.  Her routine was to get up in the morning and go "put her face on" and top it off by putting on her pearl necklace.  She might have been getting ready to go somewhere or just be at home – it didn't matter.  The girls remember a few times where they were needed to go out at night to get a calf when dad wasn't available… mom had to take a few minutes to put her lipstick on first.

One of Lila's favorite tasks in the spring was to burn the old dead grass after the snow melted and the grass was dry enough to burn.  One year she set fire to the grass across from the corral and it burnt so well it started the cedar fence post pile ablaze. If our memories are correct, the fire department was called to put that fire out.  Another incident happened when mom used some gasoline to start a brush pile on fire… seems as though that one started with a fairly good-sized explosion.

Lila and John loved to travel.  At first, the family tent camped until it rained so hard on one particular trip that everything and everyone was soaked. It took several days in a rented cabin in the Canadian wilderness to dry out.  At that point, John and Lila decided it was time to buy a "dude shack" (camper).  For nearly 50 years, they travelled in the pickup, camper and pulled the boat.  Over the years, they explored thousands of miles mostly in Canada.  Lila also made three trips to visit Norway.  Lila was always looking for some interesting places to travel to.  One particular year, while John was at work, she decided to make arrangements for them to travel to Churchill, Manitoba, Canada so they could go out on tundra buggies to see the polar bears.  She hadn't mentioned it to John at all, so he found out when he got home.  Another one of their trips "north" was about 3 months long.  Lila and John travelled either on their own, or with friends (in a convoy). Several times Lila and John took their camper to meet some of their friends at Meadow Lake just outside of Ione just so they could camp and visit. When they got older, it was normal to see the pickup and camper parked out by the big cedar tree on their property… they were camping but still close to the house.

Over the years, Lila helped John host the "960 car" for the NPOV Lions excursion train rides until the rides ended a few short years ago. She enjoyed it so much and became a member of the NPOV Lions Club.   She loved meeting all the people who came to ride, and the friends she'd found in the club.

Lila was a devoted wife and mother; she dearly loved her children, grandchildren, great-grands, great-greats, nieces and nephews, and enjoyed spending time with them when they came to visit.

In lieu of flowers, etc., donations may be made to any of the following organizations:

Hospice of Spokane, Fire District #2, North Pend Oreille Valley Lions, Selkirk Valley 4-H, or Pend Oreille County Historical Society.

Sherman-Campbell Funeral & Cremation Services in Newport is in charge of arrangements.  Family and friends are invited to sign the online guest book at shermancampbell.com .