Gleo Coats 85, of Doland, SD died Wednesday, August 20, 2008 at Sun Quest Village in Huron, SD.

Her funeral will be Saturday, August 23, 2008 at 10:30 a.m. at the United Methodist Church in Doland. Reverend Grace Rhodes & Harold Loewen will officiate. Burial will be in the Doland Cemetery.

Visitation will be Friday from 1-8:00 p.m. with the family present from 6-8:00 p.m. and a prayer service at 7:00 p.m. at Thelen Funeral Home in Redfield. (www.thelenfuneralhome.com)

Gleo (Roberts) Coats was born July 8, 1923, in Dent, MN to Ethan and Pearl (Stuck) Roberts. She was raised by the Houghtaling family on a farm south of Doland as her mother died when she was just two years old. She attended a country school south of Doland for her primary grades. When she went into high school she moved back with her father and attended Raymond High school and graduated in 1940.

She married Francis Coats on February 22, 1945, in Redfield. He was one of only two boys in her small country school that she attended. Francis took his car to Huron on a trailer and sold it so they would have money for the marriage and the honeymoon. Together they spent the first years of marriage living near Miller, SD on the family farm. In the fall of 1948 they purchased a farm south west of Doland where they still live.


Gleo was a member of the Doland Methodist Church and the Rebecca Lodge for 65 years. She liked to cook, garden and to raise chickens. She would take eggs to town and sell them two nights a week. Gleo was not just a mother, but a farmer also. She would be working the land right along side of her husband and was able to do anything that needed to be done on the farm. She truly loved her children and grandchildren and they were a very important part of her life.

She is survived by her husband, of 63 years, Francis of Doland, their son, Jim (Jane) Coats of Doland, a daughter Cheri Martian of Trail City, SD; ten grandchildren and eleven great grandchildren; numerous nieces and nephews.

Gleo was preceded in death by her parents, her son-in-law, Richard Martian; three brothers Ethan, Clair and Russ.