Gloria Kenne

Gloria Celeste Kenne - obituary

Our beloved mother, grandmother, and wife passed away peacefully in her home in Idaho on February 12, 2021. She was 69 years old. Gloria was born on July 22, 1951, in Beech Grove, Indiana. She grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, where her parents, Charles and Mary Morrow raised their family of five daughters. In 1972 she met and married her husband of 48 years, Leonard Kenne. Leonard and Gloria lived in Ames, Iowa until 1982, where they built a home and began raising their family. They moved out west to Montana with their two daughters and their son and completed their family of six when their third daughter was born in 1984. Gloria enjoyed sprucing up her flower gardens and living by the Bitterroot River for 38 years in Montana before moving in June 2020 to Post Falls, Idaho to be closer to the lakes in North Idaho and her grandchildren in Moscow, Idaho.

Gloria’s greatest joy in her life was her family - her husband, her four children, and her 14 grandchildren. She was even known as the best neighborhood grandma, as she always loved any children who lived nearby and would spoil them with treats and flowers any chance she got. While she was primarily a stay-at-home mother most of her life, she did various other work including running a seamstress business, substitute teaching and watching other children in her home.

Gloria was a seamstress her whole life. She made all of the dresses for her wedding party, clothes for herself, her kids and grandchildren, dolls, horses, pillows, and baby blankets with detailed embroidery work. She was an artist, bringing animals to life in chalk pastel drawings and in her embroidery work. She made dolls of every kind, including horses, bears, and bunnies, and sold some of her creations, labeling them as “Made in Montana, by Grandma’s Dolls.”

Fishing, camping, and boating with her family and husband brought her great joy, whether, in their own boat on a beautiful lake in Montana or Idaho or on a charter boat on the Pacific Ocean, she always knew how to reel the fish in. Gloria and Lenny traveled to Alaska three times, two by cruise ship and once by car. Gloria once caught a 110-pound halibut on a fishing trip in Alaska, the biggest catch on the boat.

Gloria and Lenny have enjoyed traveling in recent years, with a trip to Switzerland, including the Alps, and Salzburg, Austria because Gloria always wanted to see where The Sound of Music was filmed. They also made three pilgrimage trips to the Holy Land, including Isreal, where Gloria walked in the footsteps of Jesus and traveled the path of Moses in Egypt and Jordan, and followed the ministry of Paul and John in Athens, Greece, and Ephesus, Turkey. Gloria met some of her best friends on these trips and felt the presence of Christ while touring the Holy Land and boating on the Sea of Galilee.

Gloria is survived by her husband Leonard Kenne; her three daughters: Heather Wonch, Oregon; Jeanette Langston, Vermont; Rebecca Couch, Idaho; her son: Shawn Kenne, Colorado; four sisters, two sisters-in-law, many nieces, and nephews, cousins, and her 14 grandchildren. She is predeceased by her parents, Charles and Mary Morrow.

Visitation and rosary for Gloria will begin at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 17, 2021, at English Funeral Chapel, 1700 N Spokane Street, Post Falls, Idaho. A funeral mass will be held Thursday, February 18, 2021, at 11:00 a.m. at St. George’s Catholic Church, 2004 N Lucas Street, Post Falls, Idaho, with the committal service to follow at Evergreen Cemetery. A reception will follow at English Funeral Chapel.