Menu
Oneita Carpentier
Oneita Birtie Hills Carpentier left this world to be with loved ones long past on Oct. 13, 2011, with her loved ones by her side, after a long battle with leukemia and dementia. A viewing will be held from noon to 2:30 p.m. at Rost Funeral Home, McMurtrey Chapel, with a graveside service at 3 p.m. at Mountain View Cemetery on Wednesday, Oct. 19. There will be a potluck reception following at Carl Miller Park. Please bring a dish and story.
Oneita was born to Ernest A. Hills and Bessie E. Loynd (Cramer) on June 25, 1927, in Clarkward, Idaho, during the Great Depression.
Her mother moved their home to Rigby when her father passed away, and this is where she was raised and went to school until completing the 8th grade. In 1942, she moved to Emmett and Mountain Home in 1949.
Oneita worked at The Sports Bar, where she met Oliver F. "Babe" Carpentier II. They were married on Feb. 21, 1953, in Boise. Oneita and Babe moved to Montana and Nevada where he worked as a logger and Oneita drove the local school bus for a one-room schoolhouse. She also worked as a cook for the Mountain Home School District and became head cook for the town elementary schools and base primary. She retired around 1970.
In 1962, they moved to Mountain Home and made it their final homestead.
Oneita lived in California, Montana, Nevada, Emmett, Rigby, Clarkward and Mountain Home.
Oneita loved vegetable and flower gardening, her yard was always in bloom, and taking care of her chickens, rabbits, ducks and love birds. She also loved to go camping, fishing, getting firewood, reading Indian books and going to yard sales. Her divinity candy, pies, onion rolls and canned peaches were out of this world and family favorites. She also liked to crochet baby afghans for her grandchildren, but her greatest joy was raising her son, Dennie, whom she and Babe adopted in 1969. Together they helped get the special needs programs started in the schools in Mountain Home. Oneita was a "pioneer" of homeopathic remedies, which she insisted the whole family try.
Oneita is survived by her daughter, Carlene Young, and son Dennie Carpentier, both of Mountain Home, son Gary (Corina) Carpentier of Elk City, sisters Edna (Birl) Watkins and JoAnn Vitatoe, and sister-in-law Lena Cramer of Mountain Home, and a brother, John (Rosalie) Cramer, of Boise, 14 grandchildren, 31 great-grandchildren with one on the way, three great-great-grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her husband, Oliver, her parents, Ernest and Bessie, three sons, Gene, Alfred and Ronnie, three sisters, Odessa, Katie and Betty, and five brothers, Don, Elston, Kermit, Lee and DeWayne.