Ethel Jeanette Morrison

August 8, 1921 - January 31, 2015

Ethel Jeanette Morrison was born on August 27, 1921, to Harry and Olga (Woyen) Ellingson, the second daughter of 7 siblings. She went to country school, about a mile away, and remembered her father harnessing the horses on cold winter days and taking her to school in the sleigh, huddled under a horsehide blanket. Ethel left the farm when she was 15 and moved to Spring Grove where she worked at Pete Jensen's bakery. In 1940 she married Gennat O. Gilbertson, a local electrician and later owner of the Spring Grove Bus Lines which chiefly transported country kids to school. They had two children, Glenn in 1941, and Ove in 1946. Ethel enjoyed being a homemaker, gardening and canning the food that came from it. She planted an ever expanding garden of flowers and supervised several additions to the house she lived in for 70 years. She enjoyed her friends in the Ladies Aid and her birthday club, and also liked to bowl and play cards with them and other friends. Once, annoyed by being beaten at whist too often by her husband and Gerhard Omodt, she and Gerhard's wife, Tinka, devised a method of sending signals to each other as to what suit to play. It worked. The men never figured out why they started losing so often. Gennat passed away in 1964 and Ethel continued running the bus line for many more years with the able assistance of Ralph Lane and so many loyal bus drivers. In 1968 she married Tom Morrison, a family friend, and enjoyed traveling with him around the country and to the Bahamas. Tom died in 1975 and Ethel began to spend much of her time stitching a Norweigan embroidery called hardanger. Over the years she made hundreds of pieces giving most away and selling some at Vanberia's in Decorah. Ethel left her home in 2012 and moved to Assisted Living. She was very happy with her new home but became ill in 2013 and moved to the Tweeten Lutheran Healthcare. She was always grateful for the kind assistance she got there and still found reason to smile and share a laugh. Ethel died on January 31, 2015, from complications of bronchitis. Ethel is survived by son, Ove; by six grandchildren from the marriage of Glenn to Janet (Bergsgaard) Sanness; Elizabeth (Bill) Spalding, Galen (Cheryl) Gilbertson, Jeff (Shannon) Gilbertson, Sue (Joe) Opat, Christopher (Carol) Gilbertson, Pam (Tim) Stenstrom; and by 15 great-grandchildren; Nichole Sivigny, Caitlin, Garrett and Erica Gilbertson, Jonah and Jordan Gilbertson, Kacie and Tim Opat, David, Regina, Gabe and Ricky Gilbertson, Signey, Evan, and Jacob Stenstrom. She is also survived by two sisters, Luella Ike and Marjorie Rostad and many nieces and nephews and special neighbors. Ethel is preceded in death by her husbands; parents; son Glenn; three sisters, Edna Kumpf, Harriet Quarve, Norma Ellestad and one brother Lloyd Ellingson. The family prefers memorials be given to Trinity Lutheran Cemetery.