Fern Mercer died July 28 at her home on West Babcock, where she had lived since 1993 when the street still had two empty lots and a feed store. She moved from Missoula with a U-Haul and a business plan for a custom framing shop, which she ran downtown for twenty-seven years until the rent tripled and she retired to frame her own grandchildren’s artwork instead.

Fern remembered when the Co-op was a buying club in a garage and when you could park on Main Street at noon. She remembered the winter of ‘96 when the snow didn’t stop until April, and the summer of ‘01 when the smoke from the fires turned the sun blood-red for weeks. She remembered every contractor who shorted her on a bid and every customer who brought her huckleberry jam as payment.

Her daughter, Sylvie, lives in Belgrade with three children and a commute that gets longer each year. Her son, Tomas, lives in Belgrade too, in the house Fern helped him buy before the prices detached from gravity. They visit every Sunday for soup and the same argument about whether the town is ruined or just different.

Fern asked for no flowers. She asked that you plant something native in your yard and water it through July.