STEVENSVILLE - Doris Pauline O’Bannon, a member of the Greatest Generation, was born October 22, 1926, and passed from us to be with her Lord on May 16, 2022, at the age of 95 years young.  She passed away at home surrounded by her family. 

Doris was born the fourth of five children to William Elijah Whitener and Nancy Melvina Whitener (nee Schell), in the rolling farmlands of Bollinger County, Missouri.  A country girl, she attended a one-room schoolhouse and often spoke of riding her horse to school.  A child of the Great Depression, she never forgot the value of a dollar or how essential it was that everyone coming through her door have abundant portions of her good, home cooking.  A child of the farm, she worked the soil of her vegetable and flower gardens up until days before her passing.

After graduating from Patton High School in Patton, Missouri, at the age of 16, she left rural Missouri to get a job and live in the big city of St. Louis.  Within a few short years, she was introduced to a handsome Navy man at a Sunday School function.   He was on leave, and all the girls had their eyes on him.  But later, when he returned home to St. Louis after his tour of duty in the South Pacific during WWII, it was the spunky Doris who caught his eye.  On November 2, 1946, she married the love of her life, John O’Bannon.   They were blessed with one son, John, and 75 and a half years together.

Doris held many jobs throughout her working years, but her passion always was serving her Lord and her church.   She taught Sunday School beginning in her twenties through well into her seventies.  She and John served as young peoples’ leaders, and she also served as leader of her church’s missionary society.  If there was an excuse for a church party, Doris was the hostess, and their home was always open.  When she and John moved to Montana in 1996, they became members of the Bitterroot Valley Church of the Nazarene.  In no time at all she organized and was president of that church’s first JOY (Just Older Youth) Group for people 55 years of age and older.  There was not a visitor to the church that didn’t receive a warm, heartfelt welcome from her.  She was fearless and touched the lives of so many people.

Doris was preceded in death by her mother and father; brothers, Jack and Bill Whitener; sisters, Dorothy Lacy and Katherine Slinkard, nephew John Whitener and niece Mary Lou Conrad.  She is survived by her husband John H. O’Bannon, her son John W. O’Bannon and his wife Barbara, her grandson John J. O’Bannon and his wife Rebecca (nee Weidkamp), and four nieces and their families.

Funeral service will be held by Rev. John Capen and Pastor Sean Clifton, on Thursday, May 19, 2022, at 1:00 p.m., at Bitterroot Valley Church of the Nazarene, 803 Fifth Avenue, Victor, Montana. Graveside service will follow in the Victor Cemetery. Condolences may be left for the family at www.dalyleachchapel.com