Orlee Sipes
July 13, 1919 - Nov. 30, 2008
Wednesday, December 3, 2008 10:26 AM PST
Homedale
Orlee Sipes, longtime resident of the Ridgeview District in Oregon, west of Homedale, Idaho, 89, died of longterm heart problems Sunday, Nov. 30, 2008, at his home. He was an original homesteader on the 500 acres his farm now occupies, breaking it out of sagebrush in the 1930s and ’40s.
Orlee was born to a family of three sisters July 13, 1919, in Crowley, Colo., and was raised on a farm there, by parents who were originally from northwest Missouri. He was an athlete in high school and academically gifted, graduating salutatorian. Then, in 1937, his family moved to Ridgeview and began to develop land newly opened to irrigation. He served in WWII, crossing the Atlantic via ship to Agra, India, where in the Army Air Corps he rose to crew chief, maintaining aircraft used to fly over the hump to China. He married Ann Haroldsen, of Nyssa, in 1945, and they returned to the family farm, raising three sons, feed crops, dairy heifers and later building a double-eight, grade A dairy barn. Orlee served as board chairman of the Ridgeview School District, on the water board for Owyhee project and on the Board of Directors for the old Intermountain Seed Company in Homedale. He was presented the Oregon Soil Conservation award once and the Eastern Oregon Dairyman’s Award for Excellence twice. He had many friends, was ever ready to chat with neighbors on the road or in the yard and was generous to those in need. He enjoyed hunting, fishing and traveling. But his heart was always in the land and with his family. Orlee retired in 1980 and traveled by motor home for 17 years, spending most winters at Kino Bay, near Hermisillo, Mexico, where he once saved the lives of a couple cast from a capsized boat in the surf. In 1995, ill health forced him to return to the farmhouse, where he has since been nursed in declining health by Ann, ever at his side, supported by his sons and daughter-in-law, Irene.
Orlee was preceded in death by his parents Harry and Oda Sipes, of Ridgeview; and sisters Curine (Mrs. Melvin Allen), of Caldwell, Juanita (Mrs. George Johnstone), of Homedale, and Chlotine (Mrs. Elmer Varner), of Spokane. A younger sister, Eunice, had died before Orlee was born, while his parents-to-be were still in Missouri. He is survived by Ann, his wife of 63 years; sons, Brett, of Kennewick and late of the home, Dirk and wife Irene, of Phoenix, and Lee, of Caldwell; six grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
Viewing will be held from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5, 2008. Services will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 6, 2008, at the Flahiff Funeral Chapel in Homedale. Interment will follow at Homedale-Marsing Cemetery.
A luncheon-reception will follow at 3 p.m. at the Homedale Senior Citizens Center for all friends and family.
