Marguerite Frieda Ringhand

Marguerite Frieda Ringhand

August 1, 1929 - November 13, 2020

Marguerite Frieda Ringhand, 91 years old, passed away peacefully surrounded by her family at Sanford Medical-Fargo on November 13, 2020. She was born at home in Ponemah, MN on August 1, 1929, the youngest child of Tom and Mary Spears.

Due to the Corona Virus Pandemic on the increase in our area, a celebration of Life is planned for August 1, 2021 where we have always celebrated her birthdays at Diamond Point Park.

Graveside services will be held at 1:00 pm Thursday, November 19, 2020 at St. Antipas Church Cemetery in Redby, MN with Father Gorge Ross officiating. There will be a visitation at the Cease Family Funeral Home in Bemidji from 10:00 am to 11:00 am on Thursday.

Our mom was always kind and loved meeting, visiting and sharing stories with everyone she met. She was very knowledgeable and liked to be involved in community and to attend annual events. When her sister was alive they would often go on bingo and casino trips. She often helped others and cared for her mother Mary who lived to 99 years of age. When she was young she took many pictures with her Brownie flash camera, had fun dressing her chickens in hats made from apple crate tissues, helped working on nets and gardening hominy corn. She was great at baking pies and loved being with family, especially for holiday dinners.

A graduate of Bemidji and then Blackduck High School, she was sent out on Relocation by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to Chicago, and then Minneapolis where she graduated from the Dunwoody Business College. This is also where she met and married her husband, James W. Ringhand. They then went on Relocation to Oakland, California for a short time before settling in Bemidji to raise their family. She attended Bemidji Technical College and worked for the Public Health Service.

She strongly believed in education and social change. When President Nixon signed the Indian Education Act in 1975 allowing American Indians to seek higher education, she and two of her siblings attended Bemidji State University. She stopped out to work, but later went back and graduated from BSU along with her two daughters in the 1980s. Over the years she did clerical work for the BSU student senate, the Social Security Office and at BSU Deputy Hall.

In recent years, she was a volunteer "Grandma in the Classroom" in Ponemah Elementary School helping children learn to read through the Foster Grandparent Program, Lutheran Social Services. She loved working with the children in the classroom for 16 years until about 2017.

She liked to attend the annual Red Lake Elders Conference, Wisdom Steps, Ojibwe Language Tables and the elder's van trips to various pow wows. She always tried to help others and would always send money orders to various charitable organizations. She had a great sense of humor and always had a pet cat. Her most recent Giiwedin Kitty is twenty years old.

She will be greatly missed by her family including her son, Curtis Ringhand, James B. and Donna Ringhand, daughters, Cleo (Leonard Butcher, Sr.) Ringhand, Mary (David Ben White, Rosalie, Xavier, Elizabeth) Ringhand, grandchildren, Lenny Jr., Waabanang, and Giiwedin Butcher and numerous nieces and nephews and their families.

In the spirit world, she will be joining her husband, James W. Ringhand who passed in 1972, her parents, Mary and Tom Spears, siblings, Greetings Spears Sr., Percy Spears Sr., Chester Spears, Stanley Spears, Muriel (Archie) Boswell, an infant sister and son-in-law Leonard Butcher, Sr. and in-laws Percy and Cecil Wayne, many nieces, nephews, cousins, friends and extended family.

Events

Nov. 19

Visitation

Thursday, November 19, 2020

10:00AM - 11:00AM

Cease Family Funeral Home of Bemidji

2807 Irvine Avenue NW

Bemidji, MN 56601

Nov19

Graveside

Thursday, November 19, 2020

1:00PM

St. Antipas Episcopal Cemetery

Hwy 1

Redby, MN 56670