Dian Sondra Norby-Vinion

Dian was many things to many people.. lover of fine food, music, theater, local artists and their work, dedicated mother, wife, friend, teacher, singer, guitar player, and advocate to the underserved and mentally ill. She loved beautiful places, birds (she had an African Grey parrot named Jaco for about 10 years), beautiful people (inside mainly, but appreciated outer beauty as well), dance, and performance of all kind.

She was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey on June 20, 1943 to John Lowell and Lois Jean Ring and was the oldest of 4 children. She spent her childhood excelling at her academics, working the family farm, helping care for her younger siblings, taking odd jobs as a nanny, seamstress, and tutoring until attending college at Gustavia Adolphus, where she studied English and French. She spent time in her collegiate years studying abroad in Algeria before returning home. It was not long after her return home she met her husband Wallace “Wally” James Norby. Together they had two children and spent the next 19 years raising them up through sports, 4-H, theater, and public schooling. During  her children’s Highschool years she relished her return to school, obtained her teaching credential, and began a first of its kind language exploration course for middle schools in Missoula, inspiring love of language in youth at a most important younger age. This program took her through several years within the middle school system until cutbacks forced the program’s end and she went to teaching French at Big Sky HS, where she would enrich teens lives through travel, culture, art, cuisine and the French language. She was passionate about France and all things French! You could never go wrong with talking ANYTHING French with her. Dian and Wally enjoyed many close years together attending community Santa events with Wally and sharing together in their kids theater performances, 4-H projects, livestock and athletics. They also were active in the Christian community. They were blessed to see their two children happily married to the spouses they still share today. It was just three short weeks after the birth of their first granddaughter, Emma, Dian lost her husband and best friend Wally to emphysema. She spent the next couple of years hiking, spending time with her grandchildren (during this time her daughter had her second granddaughter), until she would meet her final husband, and friend Marvin Vinion. “Marv” as most people know him, was also a widower, who had suffered the recent loss of his soulmate. They were introduced through a mutual friend of Wally’s. Marv too had children and grandchildren and together Diane and Marv found comfort, love, partnership, and peace. They traveled extensively, enjoyed garden club, entertained exchange students, shared common friendships with other lifelong friends and enjoyed each other’s children and grandchildren. Dian loved to spend time cooking with Marv, reading, talking on the phone with her children and grandchildren (as well as Marv’s), quilting, sewing, and doing sudoku puzzles. She always loved how he too had two children and grandchildren he loved deeply, which she connected to like her own.

Dian was always very proud to talk about her actor son, Leif, and medical professional daughter Christina, as well as her two beautiful granddaughters, Emma and Bella.  The final years of her life were spent enjoying time with all of them and watching her granddaughters grow into teenagers. She was ecstatic to learn her youngest granddaughter was not only an amazing Karateka but would begin to study French in High-school, and was an avid actor and artist like her own son, Leif.  She proudly bragged about her other granddaughter’s athletic accomplishments and the fact that she was to serve her country proudly after HS, just like her own daughter Christina did. A year before her passing she and Marv spent an amazing summer vacation in Montana with her granddaughters. She often spoke in that last year about that being the “best birthday present ever” and the memories from that time remain with Marv and with her granddaughters. Dian loved to hang with teens and enjoyed spending time with many of her former French students who have gone on to become successful scientists, artists, business people, and world travelers in their own right. Her legacy remains not just with family but with her former students.

Dian passed away on October 20, 2024, nearly 17 years to the anniversary date of the death of her soulmate Wally, and just two short months after her own mother Lois, who lived to be 100. Dian suffered from Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD), an insidious lung disease that can take away time quickly, but can also afford time (if caught in time).  She was surrounded by the love of her two children, husband Marv, his two children, and several family friends, as she passed peacefully in her home on hospice with the tender care of Marv and the hospice team. She is survived by her two children Leif and Christina and their spouses Suzie and Jeff, along with two Granddaughters Emma and Bella, her sister Rebecca, brother John, and many nieces, nephews and family cousins throughout the US. She will always be loved and remembered as a beautiful Christian, devoted mother, wife, teacher, friend, advocate, linguist, avid conversationalist , and lover of all the arts. She will be laid to rest in the Missoula MT VA cemetery next to Wally at a ceremony to be held in late spring or early summer 2025. Another announcement will be released prior to her memorial. It will also post to her Facebook page, which will remain open in loving memory. Please feel free to post loving memories to her Facebook page or this memorial wall!

“Puissiez-vous reposer en paix”

For condolences/flowers please send donations in her name to NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness)Missoula nonprofit Chapter, via the “Donate” button. She was an advocate for all whom she felt were the “forgotten” and mentally ill in our world.  www.namimissoula.com