Hilde Dora Solonar

Hilde Dora Solonar (née Uhlmann) enjoyed her final days basking in sunshine and listening to birds. On April 18th, 2024 she bid her family a final good night after 98 years of living positively. She will be dearly missed by all who knew her and depended upon her deep compassion and ceaseless moxie for inspiration and encouragement.

Born in Saxony, Germany in 1926, Hilde grew up joining long Sunday walks with family, mushroom picking in the forest, high diving at the pool, and cross-country skiing to school. Her mathematical acuity led to a position calculating the payroll for a company at just seventeen. Her grandfather told many a wonderful tale about his time in the United States, so young Hilde made good on her vow to go to America, starting out with family in Pennsylvania, where she later met her fellow-immigrant husband of fifty years, Waldo.  

After a stint in Seattle, their young family moved to Havre, Montana (1968), where they vowed to stick it out a few years but ended up staying over twenty! Hilde spent long nights reading literature and writing essays for her degree in English from Northern Montana College while her husband practiced pathology at Northern Montana Hospital. As the children grew older, she opened Saddle Butte Art Gallery in Havre and later Art Forms Gallery in Polson, MT until retiring at eighty. A career highlight was organizing a show of western art representing many Montana artists in Munich, Germany.

Hilde was an avid gardener, cherished wife, loving mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, as well as a polka party hostess to friends. A celebration of her life followed by a reception will be hosted at First Lutheran Church in Havre on Saturday, Sept. 7th at 10am, then placed to rest with Waldo (2012) at Highland Cemetery.

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