Phillip "Stan" Stanley Fries

On October 20, 2024, Stan Fries made one more trip up Mt. Powell to the Dempsey Lakes, but didn’t stop at the top this time. Stan passed away peacefully at age 93, after a final weekend surrounded by family and friends, in Deer Lodge, MT, his home of over 55 years. Stan will be remembered for his heart, and generosity, and being there when someone needed him.

Phillip Stanley Fries was born April 9, 1931, on the family homestead in the Castle Mountains near Checkerboard, MT, to Julius and Pauline Fries, the fourth of ten siblings. Stan was due to be born in March, but Pauline contracted pneumonia and didn’t give birth until a month later—one of the few times Stan would ever be late.

In order to attend and graduate high school in White Sulphur Springs, over 20 often unforgiving wintry miles away from the family ranch, Stan “boarded out” at times with families in town, including a period when he and his older brother Max (Ernie), boarded out with Fred Reinhart, a bachelor who worked at the local slaughterhouse, and delighted his boarders with his trademark windpipe stew. Stan enjoyed a few favorite foods over the years; he and Theresa canned sauerkraut, and he occasionally cooked a favorite, “sheepherder potatoes,” for family, but for some reason he never made windpipe stew.

Stan volunteered and enlisted to serve two years in the Korean War, serving as a U.S. Army Corporal and communications lineman in the Signal Corps. After returning home, Stan would work in ranching, forestry, firefighting, and logging, in the White Sulphur Springs area, but most auspiciously, or perhaps fatefully, while working at the sawmill, Stan met Eldon Chapman, who became a lifelong best friend. The two had many adventures, including helping to start and sustain the 60-plus year-old White Sulphur Labor Day Rodeo, in which they both helped acquire the stock, and participated in events like saddle bronc riding and wild cow milking, and they also helped get the city park started that would become Rader Park. Stan and Eldon traveled south, as the season would dictate, logging from White Sulphur Springs to Arizona. Their adventures together included Stan’s experiences as a sawyer, finding himself dangling over a cliff gripping a freshly felled tree with one arm and debating whether to drop the still-running chainsaw in the other hand, or hurl it over his head onto the bank before climbing up and saving himself. Spoiler alert: what respectable sawyer would drop a perfectly good chainsaw off a cliff? –that one left a scar. And, there was the time Eldon and Stan devised a plan while logging in extremely deep and frozen snow near White Sulphur (should have been on the way to Arizona), that Stan would climb down in the tree well and saw off the tree at ground level, grabbing onto the end of the hurdling log at just the right moment, letting it catapult him to safety (they were paying attention in high school physics?). Worked. Not that the schemes weren’t mutual, but one of Eldon’s better ideas was the time he took Stan to Wilsall to get a load of firewood for a widow, Helen Chriske, and Stan also met her daughter.

Stan and the love of his life, Theresa Chriske, married on June 21, 1969, and raised their family in Deer Lodge, where he worked in the Cominco mine near Garrison, and then as a guard at the historic and current prisons, until retiring in 1994 after 25 years. He continued working as a water commissioner into his 80s, and was an avid gardener into his 90s, although he did scale back his garden when he hit 90, to a mere 900 pounds of potatoes and 30 cabbages, to get Theresa and him though the Montana winter. Stan believed in hard work, and always stayed busy, often working pretty much from dark to dark. But power naps in his recliner in between gigs or chores were a common sight, often with a Louis L’Amour western novel open, resting across his belly.

Stan and Theresa enjoyed their community, neighbors, and family; for many years they adopted a section of Interstate 90 near their home that they dutifully walked and cleared of litter, and they were always sure to spread the wealth of the garden harvest. Stan and Theresa took many a road trip over the years, around the state, and a few out of state to visit family, and could usually be found enjoying the music at the monthly Old Time Fiddlers’ Jams around western Montana, or weekly Jammers playing in Deer Lodge.

Stan was preceded in death by his parents, Julius and Pauline, and all nine of his siblings, Anna, Jerry, Max (Ernie), Earl, Orville, Margaret, Patty, Kathy, and Gladys. He is survived by his wife of over 55 years, Theresa Fries; daughters, Wanda (Ray) Mellinger and Lynn (Luis) Torres; son, Theran (Janice) Fries; 3 grandchildren, 3 great grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews.

Viewing will be held from 4-6pm on Friday, October 25, 2024, at First Baptist Church, 127 Sam Beck Rd., Deer Lodge, MT 59722.  Funeral Service will begin at 10:30am on Saturday, October 26, 2024, at the church with a visitation beginning at 9:30 am. A graveside service with military honors will follow at Hillcrest Cemetery in Deer Lodge. A reception will follow the graveside services back at the church.

Memorials in honor of Stan are suggested to the Deer Lodge Honor Guard, 271 Meadow Vista, Deer Lodge, Montana 59722. These donations help support the Honor Guard and their services to veterans in our community.

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