Over the past year, River Rock Assisted Living in Rafter J welcomed some longtime Wyoming residents as new occupants as well as the parents of some longtime valley dwellers.

Mardell Fear is a true Wyomingite, having been born in Kemmerer on Aug. 5, 1921. She married Ken Fear, of Sublette County, and together they worked hard for 50 years running their ranch, where they raised three daughters and a son. How she found time to be a 4-H group leader, participate in the Sublette County Artists’ Guild and serve as president of the Wyoming Homemakers Association we can only wonder. After selling the ranch, the husband-and-wife team of 66 years traveled around and lived in a trailer. Mardell is not a brand-new face at River Rock, as she spent a couple of months there in the spring of 2012. She enjoys reading and playing bridge and has done a lot of sewing.

Originally from Chicago, Betty Feuz moved to Moose when she was a young lady. She came with a group of like-minded friends who also loved the great outdoors and were looking for an adventure. What Betty found was adventure indeed in the form of Walt Feuz.

Betty and Walt were married, and she became a ranch wife on his family’s homestead near Moran, where they raised four beautiful daughters. Jane lives here in the Jackson area, and Chris, Joanne and Martha all still live in Wyoming and work in the ranching industry. After Walt passed away, Betty picked her traveling spirit back up. She has joined friends to visit South America and Alaska and has gone on several cruises, including one that took her around the world. Betty really enjoyed the cooking aspect of being a ranch wife and was very good at it. These days she enjoys going out to the symphony, reading and traveling around the area, taking in what it has to offer. Betty is very social and visits regularly with other River Rock occupants and guests.

Pat Cook moved here in 2008 from Detroit to be nearer to her one and only daughter, Julie McLaurin — wife of Town Administrator Bob McLaurin and mother of Tim and Duncan. At that time she settled into a Pioneer Homestead apartment. As a young woman, Pat studied business at the University of Detroit and worked at an advertising agency before becoming the mother of four boys and Julie.

She has always enjoyed traveling with her family as well as cooking and knitting. Pat is an avid reader and also enjoys playing pinochle and shopping. In fact, she worked in a women’s clothing store after her children were grown and has great fashion taste to this day. She appreciates the music of the 1930s and ’40s and delights in watching golf and baseball, especially the Cleveland Indians, for whom her father pitched in the early 1900s. During her life, Pat has done a lot of traveling: Her sister took her on a trip around the world in 1973, and she has also traveled to Hawaii, Mexico, England and Texas.

Fred Hancock has been at River Rock Assisted Living since August 2012. He spent most of his life in Hinsdale, Ill., a suburb of Chicago.

He taught high school and college-level English. He is a football and baseball enthusiast, and played football in high school and at Southern Illinois University. Fred’s other interests include stamp collecting, reading, surfing the Internet and playing duplicate bridge.

He likes Broadway musicals and orchestral music. A well-traveled man, he has visited all 50 states and Canada and has gone overseas several times. He moved to River Rock because his daughter and her family live in the area.

Adrienne Bontecou moved from Georgia to River Rock in October. She was born in Rye, N.Y., which is about 30 miles north of New York City. That is where she met her husband of 46 years and where they raised their family. She has been involved with the Methodist Church all of her life. Two of her children, sons Todd and Steve, have lived in Jackson for quite a while, and, via Todd, Adrienne has two granddaughters who live here, Alex and Sarah. Adrienne possesses a love of big band and orchestral music, She enjoys traveling, having visited Germany, France, Italy and Bermuda, among other places. Adrienne chose to return to Georgia between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

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Ceci Clover writes weekly on the doings and doers in and around Jackson Hole. Email submissions to circlingthesquare@hotmail.com or call 733-8348.