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Lorraine Hiler Lanphere
We are sorry to announce the death of our sister, Lorraine Hiler Lanphere.
Lorraine was the daughter of Fred W. Hiler and Elva Gibson and step-daughter of Addie Hiler Whitt, and great granddaughter of Pioneer Idaho families. She grew up in Glenns Ferry in the midst of her large, extended family that lived there then. She graduated from Glenns Ferry High School, Class of 1941, and graduated from Albion State Normal School with a teaching degree.
During World War II, Lorraine was one of the first women to join the WAVES, the U.S Navy's women's auxiliary that later became part of the Navy. She went off to war as part of the "Greatest Generation" to do her part without any thought of recompense or reward, proud to serve the country that had been so good to her immigrant family.
She trained Navy Fighter Pilots in the Link Trainer at Corpus Christi, Texas, and after the war, married a career Navy chief, Raymond Lanphere. Lorraine and Raymond were stationed in many places around the Pacific; on Kwajalein where she taught school, when the last of the Japanese were still fighting from the caves there even though the war was long over; to Adak, Alaska, in the Aleutian chain where there was five feet of snow.
They had five children, David, Katherine, Susan, Patty and Amy, who died last year, and many grandchildren. Ray died and in later years she was again a school administrator.
Over the past 20 years, Lorraine and Steve Mahoney, her partner of almost a quarter century, spent most summers in Idaho, visiting her family and classmates and familiar places and just soaking up a lot of home-time. She wrote beautiful long letters in her classic flowing script that became keepsakes for her family and friends, never yielding to modern convenience of typewriter or computer.
Lorraine is the much-loved sister of Fred and John Hiler and Margaret Whitt Cox. She will be so very much missed by her many nieces and nephews and her cousins and all of her extended family that meant so much to her.
A memorial service will be held for her at Glenn Rest Cemetery at a later date. Memorials are suggested to the Glenns Ferry Historical Museum, the Rock School where she was in grade school, c/o Glenns Ferry City Hall, P.O. Box 910, Glenns Ferry, ID 83623. You know she would like that, for no matter where she lived, Glenns Ferry was always her, "Home Town."