Vera A. Specking, age 90, of Helena

Vera Ailene (Vaughan) Specking passed away peacefully Aug. 27, 2015, surrounded by family at St. Peters Hospital. She was 90.

Vera was born Oct. 11, 1924, in Buhl, Idaho, to Jenny Aura Cook and Roy Vaughan. In 1928, the family moved to Gateway, Colo., where Vera and her brother, Richard, helped with the ranch work, attended a one-room school, and she developed a life-long love of horses. She graduated high school boarding and working in Grand Junction, 60 miles from the ranch, and received an English degree from the University of Colorado in 1945, four months after her 20^th birthday.

Following college, Vera was recruited for a job in Washington D.C. during WWII, helping decipher Japanese code for the United States, a job she always said she wasn’t supposed to talk about.

After the war, she worked several jobs, but in 1949 decided to take a vacation to Alaska, where she met Keith Specking. They married less than a year later, on July 10, 1950.

They owned and operated Rabbit Creek Inn, a six table restaurant 10 miles south of Anchorage. She claimed she was a lousy cook and waitress and liked to tell the story of tripping over Rusty, their big Irish Setter, and spilling an entire platter of fried chicken on the floor of the restaurant. In addition to the restaurant, they homesteaded 160 acres and built the cabin where they lived the first four years of their married life. The first August there, her husband and his partner went on a moose hunt and packed the animal out on their backs. “Why don’t you use a horse to pack it?” she asked, introducing her husband to horses and their value to hunters in Alaska.

In 1953 they moved to Hope, Alaska, on the Kenai Peninsula about 90 miles from Anchorage. As they raised their family, they started a big game guiding business based out of their main cabin at Brushkana Creek on the Denali Highway in central Alaska. For nearly 40 years in the guide business, Vera spent hours over a wood cook stove in a cabin or a tent, helped pack horses with supplies needed for a pack trip back into the wilderness, led horses over wilderness trails, and drove long distances to pick up clients. To quote a life-long friend, “She made it look easy, being a domestic mother, working woman teaching school, and politician’s wife. Then she would put on her flannel shirt and shoe pacs, saddle the pack horse, cross rivers and mountain valleys (and pick blue berries for morning sourdoughs) as if it were just another day’s chore.”

In the late 1960s, her husband ran for the legislature and spent years as an elected official and then working for the governor. They lived in Juneau during the winter months while he was involved in politics, and summers in the Interior hunting camp.

Vera and Keith retired to 160 acres outside of Eagle Point, Oregon, and built their own home. They spent summers trailering their horses up the highway to Alaska, stopping to fish and camp along the way. They had frequent visits from friends and family at their ranch “Chimney Rock” and Vera continued to ride and even show her beloved horse Limelight.

Upon Keith’s death she moved to Helena and spent her final years living at Shelby House, enjoying coffee on the patio and conversation over meals with friends.

Vera was preceded in death by her parents Roy Vaughan ( b. 1887 d. 1971) and Jenny Aura Cook (b. 1887 d. 1968) and husband of 59 years, Keith Winton Specking (b. 1919 d. 2009) and her brother, Richard Leroy Vaughan (b. 1919   d. 2001)

Vera is survived by son Glenn Richard Specking (Terri) and daughter Joan Lynne Specking (Edwin Hall Bender), grand children Michael Specking and Danielle Specking. Also nieces and nephews Barbara Vaughan Bailey (who called her almost daily during these past few years), Janet Pagitsch-Vaughan (Sepp Pagitsch), Marilyn Vaughan, and Richard Vaughan (Gloria). She was very close to her husband’s nieces and nephews, among them Sylvia Thorlaksson Mitchell (Terry), Keith Mitchell (Kelly), Sandi O’Neill (Tom), Sharon Wilson, and Kara Marshall (Neil).

Special thanks and love go to Kim Kambic, her caregiver and dear friend of 6 years. Also to the Shelby House and the wonderful friends she made there during the last several years of her life.

Since animals were always part of Vera’s life, the family asks that memorials in Vera’s name be made to the Lewis and Clark Humane Society in Helena.

A Memorial Service is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. Saturday, October 17, 2015 at Anderson Stevenson Wilke Funeral Home, 3750 N. Montana Ave., with a reception to follow the service in the Banquet Hall of the Funeral Home.

Please visit below to offer a condolence to the family or to share a memory of Vera.

Service Schedule

Memorial Service

11:00 a.m.

Saturday October 17, 2015

Anderson Stevenson Wilke Funeral Home

3750 N. Montana Ave.

Helena, Montana 59602

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Reception

After the service

Saturday October 17, 2015

Banquet Hall of Anderson Stevenson Wilke Funeral Home

3750 N. Montana Ave.

Helena, Montana 59602

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