Elaine Price

Elaine Katherine (Jensen) Price, 88, of Petoskey died Wednesday, August 26, 2015 at Mallard Cove Assisted Living in Petoskey.  Elaine was the daughter of Theodore and Ella (Ketelhohn) Jensen.  She was born April 5, 1927, in Columbus, Wisconsin. She was the eldest of five siblings, followed by brother, Wayne (deceased 7/23/15), sister, Darlene (deceased 1/16/38), brother, Donald, and sister, Carol Bennett

Elaine was a farm girl through and through.  She lived on a dairy farm in Plover, Wisconsin where (being the oldest) she was her dad’s right hand “man”.  She grew up attending a one room school house, but when she was in high school she spent a year away from the farm and stayed with a family in Steven’s Point so that she could get a better more rounded education.  Elaine graduated from University of Wisconsin at Whitewater and came to Petoskey as a young woman right out of college to work as a business education teacher at Petoskey High School.  She worked for Petoskey schools from 1950 until 1985 when she retired.  While at Petoskey High School she served many roles such as class advisor, cheerleading coach, union officer, and chaperone to many years of activities.  She worked the gates at the local athletic events such as football games, and basketball games for years.  She was a positive role model for her business students and expected nothing but the best from them.  She touched thousands of lives in a positive way, and to this day is recognized by former students almost everywhere she goes.  

As a child she loved to ride horses and be outside with her younger siblings.  In her earlier adult years, she loved to go boating with her family and spent weekends on Beaver Island and always had her two children along.  She was an avid outdoorswoman who loved to fish, duck hunt, and deer hunt.  Being that farm girl she would clean her own fish and gut and dress her ducks or deer which she continued to do for many years even as recently as in her 70s.  She loved camping and traveling where she could experience new places.  She had many close friends in her life and some of her fondest memories were with them. For years she spent many weekends on the road with her good friends camping and in the winter months spent countless hours snowmobiling the trails south of Petoskey.  She and her good friend and traveling partner traveled the world to many exotic places where she kept mementos and keepsakes from each place.  She just recently talked about how blessed she was to be able to have traveled to the many places she did.  Her neighbors and friends were like her family watching out for one another.  Elaine loved to read, monitor the weather, watched the PGA golf tournaments, the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Lions. She enjoyed going for drives especially to the waterfront.  Every year she set a goal to find all 50 states license plates over the summer months.  Just a few weeks ago she found the one state she was missing. She enjoyed caring for flowers and maintained her gardens in her backyard, but also kept the flowers of family and friends at the cemetery looking their best, as well as the flowers at the church, and most recently in her short stay, the gardens at Mallard Cove.

She was a tremendous volunteer in her community.  She was coordinator for the voting precinct for nearly 20 years, volunteered as an usher, greeter,  and to be a substitute office person at her place of worship, First Presbyterian Church of Petoskey, and she was a volunteer at Northern Michigan Hospitals for years receiving recognition for her thousands of hours of service.

Family was very important to her.  She was closest to her children, David (Wendy) Price and Jackie (Chuck) Cameron, her grandchildren, Sara (Jeff) Galarowic, Nicholas Alford, Lauren Hill, Evan (Jane Wolf) Price, Ashley (Wendy Thatcher) Price, and her great grandchildren, Wyatt Galarowic, Kaleb Price, Taya and Parker Price-Thatcher, and loved to spend time at family functions when we were all together.

She is also survived by her brother Donald Jensen of Florida, sister, Carol Bennet t of Wisconsin, and several nieces and nephews.

Services for Elaine will be at First Presbyterian Church on Tuesday, September 1.  Visitation at 10:00 a.m. followed by memorial service at 11:00 a.m. with a luncheon to follow. Memorial contributions to Little Traverse Bay Humane Society.

Arrangements are in the care of the Stone Funeral Home of Petoskey.

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