Rosella Margaret Neddo

MALTA – Rosella Margaret Neddo, age 97, of Malta, Idaho, passed away in Burley, Idaho, on May 28, 2024.

Rosella was born August 21, 1926, in Greenwood, Wisconsin, to William and Rose Roiger Tilch. She spent her childhood growing up on a dairy farm with a family of six sisters and six brothers.

Rosella defied her family’s wishes and left her home state of Wisconsin and traveled halfway across the country to Seattle, Washington, to train for a job with the Civil Aeronautics Authority (which later became the FAA). She left home on a train and spent the Thanksgiving holiday traveling. When she arrived in Seattle, it was the middle of the night and she had nowhere to stay but she managed to secure a room at the YWCA for the night. The next day she met up with her friends who had traveled to Seattle earlier and they began their training.

When Rosella left Wisconsin, she didn’t realize she would end up working in the middle of the desert in nowhere Idaho. Rosella graduated from the Civil Aeronautics training program in May of 1945 and boarded a bus headed from Seattle to Idaho. The bus drove to Boise, Idaho, and disembarked passengers but those working for the government stayed on and drove. They drove and drove and, according to Rosella, the further south they drove the more she started to wonder what in the WORLD she had gotten herself into. After Boise, the ‘cities’ got smaller and smaller and farther apart but the sagebrush and jack rabbits became more and more abundant as the population became less so.

Finally, after many hours of riding on a hot, rough old bus, the ladies working for the Civil Aeronautics Authority arrived at their final destination; Strevell, Idaho. Rosella said she thought she had gone to the end of the earth.

Rosella lived and worked and made friends in the little Civil Aeronautics building until December of 1946 when she left to start her next journey.

On weekends and days off the ladies that worked in Strevell would sometimes go and work on different farms, in and around Malta, Idaho, harvesting potatoes. It was on one of these jobs that she met the love of her life. Rosella and her friend were working for I.J. Neddo picking spuds, when a tall, dark, handsome stranger rode up on his horse. Rosella and her friend quickly made a bet on who would get to ride on the horse first. Rosella won the bet and little did she know, she would be marrying that tall, dark, handsome stranger, the son of I.J. Neddo, Charles Alvin ‘Lindy’ Neddo.

After marrying Alvin, Rosella went to work for the Forest Service in Malta. She loved working with the four rangers and the permittees but when they moved the Forest Service office to Burley, she began another job she loved, working with the members at Raft River Electric. She retired from the REA in 1996.

In those days Rosella worked a full-time job and then came home and worked a second full-time job of feeding a family and ranch hands, cleaning, canning, baking, sewing and preparing for the next work day; often times not getting to bed before midnight and up by dawn to do it all again the next day!

Rosella was also artistic and creative. She loved to sew and oil paint and made many beautiful landscape paintings and quilts for her family. She was an excellent cook and was well known for her delicious dinners during branding season. She baked the best cinnamon rolls, made fabulous divinity nut roll candy and her unique Thanksgiving dressing was not to be missed. She also loved to garden and spent many happy hours tending her beautiful flowers.

One of the biggest joys of her life was spoiling her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She spent countless hours helping with 4-H projects, rocking babies, having tea parties and making holidays special for her grandkids. If you wanted treats, you went to grandma’s house!

Rosella and Alvin were very community minded and participated in many organizations and clubs. In 2003 Rosella and Alvin were Grand Marshals for the Cassia County Fair and in 2004 they were inducted into the Southern Idaho Livestock Hall of Fame.

Rosella is survived by her children, Lynette Schwinn and Trudy (Kevin) Tracy; grandchildren, Tina (Chuck) Heintzelman, Stephanie Schwinn and Tim Tracy; and great-grandchildren, Kylie Heintzelman, Kendall (Danny) Perkins and Makayla Heintzelman.

Rosella was preceded in death by her husband, Charles Alvin ‘Lindy’ Neddo; her son-in-law, Ronnie Schwinn; her parents; three sisters; and four brothers.

The funeral Mass will be celebrated at 11 a.m. Friday, June 7, at her beloved St. Therese the Little Flower Catholic Church, located at 1601 Oakley Avenue, in Burley. The recitation of the rosary will begin at 10:30 a.m. Burial will follow at Valley Vu Cemetery in Malta.

Family and friends will be received from 5 until 7 p.m. Thursday, June 6, at Rasmussen-Wilson Funeral Home, 1350 E. 16th Street, in Burley, and at the church on Friday, beginning at 10 a.m.

Rosella was passionate in sharing her blessings by giving to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospitals. The family suggests, in memory of Rosella, that donations be directed to St. Jude to assist in treating and defeating childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases.