Alice Rankin, 92
Alice Rankin, daughter of God, was called home to heaven Nov. 9, 2023. Alice was born April 20, 1931, in Maywood, Los Angeles County, Calif. She was the third of four children born to Charles Frederick George and Alice Blanche (Corder) George. Her older sister and brother preceded her: Mildred LaRuth (John) Smith, born in 1927, and Charles LeRoy George (Margie) born in 1929. Her “baby” sister, Patricia Anne (Ira) McDow was born in 1942.
Alice met her husband, Ronald D. Rankin when he returned home from serving in the Philippines with the U.S. Marine Corps. They became engaged after she graduated from Bell High School, Class of 1949, where she was voted “The Prettiest Girl in the Senior Class.” She worked for Swift and Company as a secretary to the VP. Alice and Ron were married in a church ceremony June 4, 1949. They were happily married for 55 years before Ron passed away Oct. 12, 2004. Ron and Alice were blessed with five children, four girls and a boy. She lost her son Jan. 19, 2023, one week before his 65th birthday, Ralph Reeder Rankin II, named for his paternal grandfather.
After 16 years of marriage, they researched a place with a slower pace of life, and moved from Southern California to Coeur d’Alene in 1965, before the freeway was completed. They moved their five kids and two dogs to the old three-story John T. Wood home at 817 Sherman Ave. It was half a city block — only two houses on the entire block between Eighth and Ninth Street. Alice and her family later found a home in the woods at Kidd Island Bay, where they developed an award-winning organic vegetable garden. She loved teaching others to grow their own produce, holding classes through the county extension office. Her vegetables and baking won “Best of Show” at the Kootenai County Fair. She continued to live at Kidd Island Bay after the children were grown and Ron passed away. When her health began to fail, Alice moved into The Lodge at Bristol Heights Assisted Living in Hayden in 2019 at the age of 88.
Alice was a proud member of the Daughters of the American Revolution for many years. She was also a member of the very first Kootenai Memorial Hospital Auxiliary in the 1960s and 1970s. She wore her coral jumper and white blouse as she worked in Hospitality. Alice was a voracious reader of all types of books, magazines and newspapers.
Alice was very proud of her husband’s accomplishments as a Kootenai County Commissioner and stood by his side in all of his endeavors. While in office, he raised private funds to build a Veterans Plaza at the rear of the courthouse. Following his death, the commissioners held a public ceremony to name the plaza the “Ronald D. Rankin Veteran’s Memorial Plaza.” Ron had served in combat with the U.S. Marine Corps in the Korean War, fighting in the battle of the Chosin Reservoir while Mimi waited at home with their first child. He returned, one of the Chosin Few.
She was called Marlene by her family until her baby sister came along and called her Mimi, a nickname her family and friends picked up. This is the name her husband called her for all 55 years of their marriage. She became Alice, her third name after Marlene and Mimi, when she and her family joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on New Year’s Eve 1960. When her records were read in as Alice Marlene Rankin before the congregation, she didn’t correct people who welcomed her as Alice, thinking that Mimi didn’t seem like a church name. There is probably no one still alive who called her Marlene or Mimi except for her sister and brother-in-law. She was now Alice for her church family and everyone else.
Alice is survived by her daughters and sons-in-law, Lynne Marlene and Kelly Robbins (Roy, Utah); Kerri Suzanne and Robert Thoreson (Post Falls, Idaho); Janna Robin and Richard Scharf (Post Falls); and Ronna Maureen and Kerry Park (Blackfoot, Idaho); and her sister and brother-in-law Patricia and Ira McDow (Foothill Ranch, Calif.). She is also survived by 19 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren. Her husband, children and grandchildren are what she cherished most in life — they were everything to her.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
A funeral will be held Saturday, Dec. 2 at 11 a.m. at the Coeur d’Alene Stake Center, 2801 N. Fourth St. under the direction of the English Funeral Chapel. Please visit Alice’s online memorial and sign her guestbook at englishfuneralchapel.com.
Rankin