Obituary - Ormond J. Manderfeld

Aug. 10, 1919 - Sept. 13, 2012

Ormond was born to Henry and Anna Manderfeld in Genesee in 1919. He grew up on a farm on the outskirts of Genesee. His brothers and sisters remember how he used a pet goat named Pat to deliver eggs and other garden goods to neighbors.

Ormond played football for Genesee High School and even finished one game with a fractured leg. He served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II in California, where he was an airplane mechanic. He would work in the local agriculture harvests when he was off duty.

With his discharge, he returned to Genesee to begin his life's work as a cattle rancher. Over the next few years he purchased a total of 11 small homesteads near Kendrick and built a successful cattle-raising business.

The home ranch house was in a remote canyon and the daily mail was delivered in a canvas bag that slid down a cable attached to a large pine tree limb in his front yard. Ormond climbed a ladder to retrieve the mail from this pine tree mailbox. He then returned the canvas mail bags to the road uphill from the ranch house and the rural mail carrier reused the bags.

The relatives always enjoyed visiting Ormond in the summer to help harvest wild blackberries and in the fall to pick apples and other fruit. The fruit patches were remnants of the homesteads purchased to make his ranch. Ormond was Cattleman of the Year in Latah County in 1950.

As a cattleman, Ormond depended on his horses and dogs to work the cattle. His dogs were always very well trained and his horses gentle to ride. Another reason for visiting his ranch was for all the kids to ride the horses. The cattle were calved and wintered in the canyons near Kendrick, but during the summer they grazed U.S. Forest Service leases in the national forests.

Ormond always enjoyed visits from his family and he traveled to any family get-togethers in north Idaho and eastern Washington.

Ormond is survived by his older sister, Catherine Manderfeld at St. Gertrude's Convent in Cottonwood; and his younger brother, Don Manderfeld of Clarkston. His siblings Dorothy Wolff, Irene Hickman and Bernice Miller preceded him in death.

Ormond has many nieces and nephews who miss him greatly. For the past several years, Ormond has been receiving care from a retirement home in Lewiston.

A Mass of Christian burial will take place at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Genesee. Burial will follow at St. Mary's Cemetery in Genesee.

Vassar-Rawls Funeral Home in Lewiston is assisting the family with arrangements. Online condolences can be made to the family at vassar-rawls.com.

Lewiston Tribune, September 16, 2012, p. 7C
Transcribed by Jill Leonard Nock