Alice Hardison

Alice Ida Perry Hardison died peacefully February 9, 2013. Family services will be held on June 1, her 100th birthday. She was born in California to Stuart and Faye Perry, June 1, 1913. She had one sister, Doris. The family moved to Butte, MT in 1916, where she was raised, attended school and was graduated in 1931. She married Dean Hardison in California in 1932. They had four children, Robert, Elizabeth (Tinka), Nancy and Michael, who provided them with 10 grandchildren, 12 great grandchildren and six great-greats. She was preceded in death by Dean, Nancy and Robert. As a young couple, Dean and Alice moved back to Butte, MT. where they purchased a Browns Gulch ranch/dairy. Alice later moved their family many times to follow Dean in the oil and mineral exploration business throughout the South and West, and then as he worked as a plumber. The family moved to Post Falls in 1969, where they farmed and ranched property in the Pleasantview area, and sharecropped with the neighbors. There they helped raise several grandchildren, including the adoption of Nancy's three children, Mary Olsen Schumacher, Timothy Olsen and Ralph Olsen, all of Post Falls. She continued to be known for her sheep and gardening and finally gave up her flock of sheep at the age of eighty-five, as the family didn't like her bucking hay and lambing in snow storms and in the middle of the night by herself. She gave up diving in and swimming across the Spokane River at the age of eighty-eight after the Pleasantview Bridge was torn down. Sadly, the fifth generation will never receive the swimming and diving lessons that came as a benefit of her love of the water. Alice was very active in the Coeur d'Alene Art Association and Art on the Green, the Post Falls Historical Society, Unity Church of North Idaho, and the Post Falls Senior Center. She was also known for the Hug coupons that she distributed while volunteering more than 3500 hours as a Kootenai Medical Center Volunteer.