Pearl Dielman, possibly Idaho’s oldest person, dies at 109

This story has been updated from its original version to correct a misspelled name.

A woman who loved root beer, high heels, having her hair and nails done and who may have been the oldest living person in Idaho, died Saturday at the age of 109.

Tasha Carper, of Lewiston, Dielman’s granddaughter, said Dielman, who was living at Royal Plaza, tested positive for COVID-19 on June 13. Carper said Dielman apparently recovered and was released from quarantine Friday but before she and her sister, Debbie McLean, could get permission to visit her, Dielman died.

“She’s been doing OK but the winter was hard on her, just being cooped up,” Carper said. Residents at the care center have been on lockdown off and on recently because of the coronavirus, Carper said, and when Dielman tested positive, she was put into a room all by herself, which she did not like.

Carper said her sister took Dielman out to get her nails done the day before she tested positive. At that time, Dielman appeared to be in good spirits and quick-witted as ever. But her appetite had been tapering off for awhile.

“We’d always get her a smoothie and we had noticed in the last couple of months, she’d still drink it but not like she did before,” Carper said.

Last year at Dielman’s 109th birthday party, the family took her out to dinner at Ernie’s Steakhouse where, Carper recalled, Dielman drank two root beers.

“She wolfed those down before the meal got there,” Carper said. Dielman also had potato prime rib soup that her other granddaughter mushed up so she could eat it.

“She’s on pureed food,” Carper said. “She’s so worried about choking but she had ice cream — she gobbled that down and she said, ‘That sure was sweet.’ ”

Last year, the Lewiston Tribune attempted to verify whether Dielman actually was the oldest person in Idaho by contacting several state and federal agencies. None of them — including the governor’s office; Idaho Commission on Aging; Idaho Labor Department; Social Security Administration; census records and other websites — could provide that information.

Dielman was born to Walter and Etna Brown in Stevensville, Mont., in 1912. Dielman was one of 13 children and she and her twin brother, Earl, were third place in the lineup.

The family lived on a farm and Dielman attended school through the eighth grade, and in 1931 she married Van Bailey.

The couple lived on a wheat farm in Montana, where Dielman cooked for the hired hands. They had one daughter, Vanita, before they divorced. During World War II, Dielman worked as a crane operator in Portland and later as a nurse at a veterans home in Stevensville.

In 1949, she married Byron Dielman and they spent summers mining for gold in Arizona. After her husband died in 1982, Dielman moved to Lewiston to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren.

Her granddaughters remembered that Dielman had a feisty temperament and was always full of life. She wore high heels everywhere, even to clean the house, the granddaughters said, and they remember walking to the A&B grocery store with their grandmother and she wore high heels all the way.

Carper said Dielman “had a hard time giving up her high heels, that was a little bit of a fight. Kind of like when she had to give up her license and she couldn’t drive her Cadillac anymore.”

Her daughter, Vanita, died at the age of 83 in 2014, and one sister, Doris, 94, is living in Anaconda, Mont. She had four grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and 15 great-great grandchildren.

Carper mentioned that someone at Royal Plaza told her that Dielman still yodeled on occasion.

McLean was told that on Friday, Dielman was out of quarantine and “was happy and bubbly.” On Saturday morning, the Royal Plaza staff got her up for breakfast and laid her back down after the meal.

“When they went back in to check on her,” Carper said, “she had passed.

“We’re not sure if it was COVID or just her age, but I’m sure COVID didn’t help,” Carper said. “I was hoping we could make it to 110, but she had other plans.”

Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@lmtribune.com.