Coretta Schmidt

Coretta Ann Schmidt

February 9, 1939-May 23, 2026

 

Coretta Ann (Hartman) Schmidt was born on February 9, 1939, in Waterloo, Iowa.  Her parents were John and Elizabeth (Hayes) Hartman.  As a girl, Coretta loved to roller skate.  She helped raise her younger brother, Joe, and helped in her parents’ store.

 

Coretta attended The University of Iowa for a short while before marrying Richard Schmidt.  In Iowa and southern Minnesota she raised four kids, often working two jobs at the same time.  She made sure the kids got into after-school and summer sports leagues, music and scouting.  She was an incredibly supportive mom, attending virtually every track and cross-country meet and every orchestra concert the kids were in.  She took them to parades, fireworks displays, camping trips and all manner of family picnics.  The family took road trips to Arizona, squeezing all 4 kids and 2 adults into a VW Bug.  Coretta also accompanied her youngest daughter to canoe races in the northeastern U.S.  She traveled to Germany to visit her son stationed there in the military.  For a few years, she helped raise her sons’ three kids back in Minnesota.

 

Coretta worked at the Minnesota State Hospital for People with Disabilities and later at a day activity center in Faribault, MN, among other jobs.  In her forties, she attended Mankato State University in Minnesota and was so proud to graduate with a Bachelor's degree in Chemical Dependency Counseling.   She then worked as a chemical dependency counselor after moving to Dallas, Texas in the nineties.  

 

While in Dallas, she enjoyed going to rodeos, dance performances and the local arboretum.  Every year she’d take a trip to Missoula to see her Montana family and grandkids.  She visited Yellowstone Park, Glacier, Victoria B.C. and many other places in the Pacific Northwest and Western Montana.

 

Coretta moved to Missoula in 2016 to be closer to family.  Once here, she attended grandkids’ swimming, cross-country and track meets.  She loved “flower patrols,” eating ice cream, seeing animals in nature, attending small-town festivals such as Apple Days in Hamilton, attending symphony concerts and taking part in any outing with family.  She moved to The Living Centre Stevensville in 2023.  There, she made frequent trips to the Teller Wildlife Refuge and played a lot of Scrabble.  

 

As throughout her entire life, Coretta was a fighter right up to the very end.  She was preceded in death by son Rodney, husband Richard brother Jay and is survived by her children Anastasia, Randel, Benjamin and Tatyana, as well as daughters-in- law Carmen and Peggy, brother Joe Hartman, and five grandkids:  Crystal, Tabitha, Calvin, Andrea and Isaac Schmidt.