Elizabeth “Liz” Jane Husted, of Nezperce, passed peacefully on Wednesday, July 3, 2024, at the age of 59. Born in Schenectady, N.Y., on March 24, 1965, and raised through childhood on Beacon Hill in Seattle, Liz joined the community of Nezperce as a teenager in 1979 along with her four younger siblings when her parents Gordon and Marilyn Webster moved the family from Seattle to become partners in Bell Equipment Inc., the local John Deere dealership.
Liz graduated from Nezperce High School in 1983 and then attended the University of Idaho where she earned a degree in interior design in 1989. Liz’s curiosity compelled her to explore various careers and jobs during the 1990s traveling throughout the western and southern United States including a summer in Alaska working at a fish cannery where she met her future husband Chad Husted. Along the way, Liz worked as a social worker, in the assembly fab at Micron Technology, and earned a degree in elementary education at Humboldt State University in California.
In September of 2001, she and Chad were married and began their family. Their first daughter Amelia was born in 2003. Shortly after in 2004, Liz was drawn back to her birthplace of New York State when the family moved to Watertown, N.Y., and welcomed their second daughter Sophie. Desiring to give her family the same small town adolescence that she experienced and to be closer to family, Chad, Liz and the girls moved back to Nezperce in 2008 buying their dream home overlooking Little Canyon on Central Ridge.
Well-traveled and well-read, Liz’s greatest joys were family, books of every kind, reading to the children at Nezperce Elementary School, or spending a day at Johnson Bar on the Selway River.
Her incredibly strong empathy for everyone other than herself always drew her life and career toward helping others. She found her life’s calling when she became an educator teaching math, English, reading and art for the Nezperce School District. Diagnosed with Peritoneal Mesothelioma in 2015, she continued educating the children of the community of Nezperce during treatments for her disease until finally and reluctantly retiring in April of 2024.
Liz is survived by Chad Husted her husband of 23 years; daughters, Amelia and Sophia; siblings, Christine (Nathan) Riggers, Kate (Adam) Haarberg, Mike (Jessica) Webster, Brian (Courtney Killmar) Webster; and her father Gordon (Lyn) Webster. She was preceded in death by her mother Marilyn Webster.
A memorial will be held at 11 a.m. Friday, July 12, at the Nezperce Legion Hall. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorials be made to the Nezperce Elementary Library, P.O. Box 279 Nezperce, ID 83543, or to the Nezperce Ambulance Fund, P.O. Box 164 Nezperce, ID 83543.
