Richard Beller
Richard Beller
PLAINS — Lifelong local rancher Richard Beller, born on Oct. 18, 1924, in Seattle, Washington, passed away peacefully at home in Plains on Aug. 15, 2021, at age 96.
Richard was born weighing 3 pounds, 13 ounces, in Seattle , Washington, given little chance of survival. He was relinquished by his birth parents following his birth and Ora Beller returned to Dixon, with Richard in a shoe box where she and Dick Beller raised him as their own. The depression brought many jobs to the Bellers and young Richard. By the time he was five, he was running wild horses with his dad, Dick. At 16, he went west to work at Haugen logging camp, followed by a job guiding fall bear hunts in the Nine Mile area, just as WWII was staring down the country. He never completed his schooling.
Richard jumped a freight train at 17 to join his dad in the Bremerton shipyards. Not liking the sea, Richard joined the U.S. Army at age 18 with a promise of Airborne, and headed off to Camp Roberts in California on his way to Europe and the 82nd Airborne Division of WWII. Ultimately, the Army decided he could better serve in a gun battalion in Normandy, Ardennes Rhineland, and Central Europe. Held captive twice for a short time by the Germans, he escaped only to be wounded by a cannon shells shrapnel in October of 1944. Healed up, he continued to serve until his honorable discharge in December of 1945. Richard was very proud to be the recipient of the purple heart as well as the many honorable awards for his service.
Returning to Dixon after the war, he met Gabrielle Fink in early spring of 1947, a teacher on the Camas Prairie. Three months later they married in Thompson Falls. In 1958 they made their home in Plains on the Lower Lynch Creek Ranch, raising cattle, working for Diehl Lumber, and compiling his life story “Wild Horses Running.”
They had three children, which they made sure were educated, Rick (JoJean) Beller of Wasilla, Alaska, and his son, (grandson to Richard), Ryan Beller of North Dakota; his daughter, Shelley Beller of Nampa, Idaho; and son, John (Martha) Beller of Nampa, Idaho. For the last two years, his son, John, has resided in Plains with Richard assisting in the care of the ranch and Richard.
After 72 years of marriage, Gabrielle Fink Beller preceded Richard in death in 2019.
Thank you to all who stopped in to drink a cup of coffee and hear a story and to the ladies of Clark Fork Valley Hospice.
A memorial celebration of life well lived, well known and with no regrets is to be held on Sept. 18 at Plains Cemetery at 11 a.m.
