Doris Quiett | 1922 - 2023
Obituaries-Mobridge / Posted Sep 11, 2023 | 4:14 PM / 204 views
Doris Evelyn (Smith) Quiett, 101, of Gettysburg, passed away Monday, September 11, 2023, at Avera Oahe Manor, Gettysburg.
Funeral services will be 10:30 a.m., Saturday, September 16, 2023, at the United Methodist Church, Gettysburg, with Pastor Jeff Adel presiding. Visitation will be one hour prior to the service, at the church. Burial will follow in the Gettysburg Cemetery.
Doris was born at Gorman, SD, on July 22, 1922. She was the second oldest child of Ray C. and Elda (Rausch) Smith.
She went to Gorman School for seven years. Because she was the only one in the fourth grade and there were four fifth graders, the teacher let her sit in with the fifth grade for the last three months of her fourth-grade year. This rural school had a total of 26 students. Doris passed the fifth-grade tests, so went on to the sixth grade the next year. She attended Agar High School and graduated at the “ripe old age” of 16 in 1939.
Because she was so young, she went to work for her uncle in his grocery store in Agar for one year. She saved money to buy 100 baby turkeys, which her dad raised with his turkeys until they were marketed in the fall. Doris used that money to go to Beauty School in Rapid City for one year. She worked in a couple of beauty shops for a year then decided she wanted to be a teacher; so, went to Northern College in Aberdeen for a year to obtain her teaching certificate.
After graduating from Northern, all the young people around Gettysburg were going various places for war-related jobs. She packed up and went to California. Her mother had cousins living in Redlands, CA, and they said she could live with them as they had a huge house, and their sons were all grown and away from home.
Doris had a job in the civilian payroll running an IBM machine at the San Bernardino Air Services Command, a military air base. She worked there for three years until the war was over. Returning to Gettysburg, she opened a beauty shop.
Doris first met Dean Quiett in 1942 at a dance. He took her home. She left for California, and he went to the service. Their second meeting was on July 4, 1946, when a group had gone to Mobridge for the rodeo and dance. After the dance Dean insisted on riding to Gettysburg with them, and once in Gettysburg, he asked her for a date to a dance in Lebanon on Saturday night. Saturday night dances were the social gathering for entertainment. Hoven, Lebanon, Gettysburg, or Agar had a dance every Saturday night. After that, they dated every Saturday night and Sunday.
Dean went to college in Brookings for one quarter; he then decided that wasn’t for him, and they were married on January 16, 1947. They left Gettysburg in a brand-new Ford car for a six-week honeymoon in Colorado, Las Vegas, and California.
Dean was a partner with his dad at Quiett Motor until he and Doris bought the Jack and Jill Grocery in 1961, and they ran the store until 1968. Dean farmed from then until selling the farm to their son, Duane.
Farming was not a winter job and after raising their four “Quiett” kids, Doris and Dean traveled for 27 years, from January to April taking them to Texas, Mexico, California, Florida, Arizona, and Alaska. They traveled for a couple of years in a pull-type trailer.
They purchased their first motorhome in 1976 as Deanell and her new baby David Dean and Quiett’s son Doug wanted to travel to Mexico with them. Their second RV was purchased in 1987; they traveled for 27 years going as far north as you can drive in Alaska, as far south as you can drive in Mexico, east to the Atlantic and west to the Pacific.
Doris lived at her home on S. Potter Street for 73 years, moving there about two months before son Doug was born.
She is survived by her four children, Deanell (Dave) Backlund of Mitchell, Doug of Gettysburg, Duane (Jan) of Gettysburg, and Donn (Mary) of Gettysburg; 10 grandkids; and 25 great-grandkids.
Luce Funeral Home of Gettysburg has been entrusted with Doris’ arrangements.