Rita Luella (Sharon) Gebo of Great Falls, Montana was 80 years old when she passed away on Sunday, February 3, 2019 at 5:55 pm in Great Falls from Parkinson’s Disease.
Rita was born on April 15, 1938 in Great Falls, Montana to Henry Sharon and Hazel (Sharon) Becker. She started grade school at S.D. Largent School. Rita continued her education and graduated from Great Falls High in 1957.
As a child, Rita’s family lived on the southern outskirts of Great Falls in an area that was locally known as “Sand Hills.” She was quite fond of telling stories about growing up and having so much fun with her friends Judy, Tootsie, Sherrie, and Lois. Rita loved the fact that her and her friends were able to play together for endless hours with almost no toys and using lots of their own imagination.
While raising four kids and running a household, Rita also had several careers. Everyone knows about Avon, but she also sold for Fuller Brush Company. Often, Rita would say that working in the pet department at Torbert’s in Kalispell was one of her favorite jobs. Rita also worked as a receptionist, setting box ads and proof reading copy for the Seattle Intelligencer newspaper.
In California, she was an administrative assistant at Vocational Rehabilitation in Van Nuys. After returning to Montana, Rita started employment at Montana State School For the Deaf and Blind. Her first job there was as an interpreter and later became a teacher’s aide. After retirement, Rita volunteered for “The History Museum” of Great Falls. She found this to be a true labor of love. Rita often would contemplate returning to her volunteer work at the museum until the time of her death.
Rita was married in 1957, to the love of her life, Richard “Pete” Gebo. They celebrated 48 years together before Pete’s passing in 2005. As a couple, Rita and Pete spent many hours working together on their hobbies. Rita created gorgeous ceramic pieces while Pete created stunning pieces of stained glass. Rita and Pete also sponsored several senior classes at Montana State School For the Deaf and Blind.
As class sponsors, they supported the students in the pursuit of earning money for their senior trip. Rita and Pete’s brainstorming idea for earning money was to have students sell tickets to International Dinners. For these dinners, the students were each responsible for helping with every step in the process which included the development of menus and all the steps of cooking and serving the international meals to ticketed guests and the cleanup. The students were cute as buttons as they dressed up in their black tie wardrobes.
Family time was often spent on camping trips or playing games. Ragball and Aggravation were the two family favorites. In later years, the card game Texas Hold’em was added to the favorites. The family championship tournament was won by Rita. If you spent any time with the Gebos, you learned to play ragball. When you played ragball you were hooked within the first pitch. The game could not be played without the expert seamstress (Rita) making the balls.
Rita’s ceramics were coveted treasures that were often received as gifts to her children, grandchildren, and friends. Of her plethora of ceramic creations many were ribbon winners at the state fair. The ribbon always accompanied the gifting of the piece. Several of her created steins were state fair winners. All of her ceramic pieces were elaborately detailed and meticulously painted. Another talent Rita had was sewing her own clothes using Simplicity patterns. Rita’s additional hobbies included many mediums of art such as drawing and painting.
Gardening was more than just a hobby. She spent hours and hours planting flowers for the yard’s landscape. She used all kinds of decorations besides plants and flowers to create her oasis. Rocks were hauled in by the truckloads. After Rita picked out the rocks, they were gathered by her sons and hauled back to Rita’s house.
Each year, the boys would take Rita to the mountains around Augusta on her birthday and Mother’s Day returning with loads of rocks that would stress the toughest of trucks! Among the rocks and flowers was old machinery. Rita also used her ceramic pieces to enrich the beauty of the yard. One of her favorite settings in the backyard was the complete set of Dwarfs accompanied by Snow White. The set even included a mine shaft and ore carts.
To read the complete obituary and share condolences, visit the O’Connor Funeral Home website.
