Ineta (Adams) Hoffman

Obituary

Class of 1938

Aug. 22, 1919 – Mar. 9, 2006

Ineta (Adams) Hoffman passed away early Thursday morning, March 9, 2006, in Boise, Idaho with her son at her bedside. Ineta was born on Aug. 22, 1919, to Earl and Maud Adams of Mann Creek, Idaho, both homesteaders of the Mann Creek area. She was a great-granddaughter of early Mann Creek homesteaders John Saling (1868) and George W. Adams (1872). She was a graduate of the one-room Saling School on Mann Creek and of Weiser High School.

Ineta was a fiercely independent country girl, most enjoying long horse rides in the hills surrounding Mann Creek and spending entire days sitting in the quiet solitude atop Coyote Hill, then owned by her dad. She maintained her fierce independence throughout her life, but gave up the country after high school graduation to pursue business, the arts, and a family. After a short stint in a Seattle business school, she followed her older sister to the Sherwood Music School in Chicago, where she worked and studied violin for two years. It was there that she met a talented young concert pianist from Los Angeles, Robert Hoffman; they fell in love and were married on Mann Creek in late 1942. She moved with him through many of the western states as he completed his Army-Air Corp P-38 basic training, saw him off to active fighter pilot duty in North Africa and Italy, and then waited, with their new son, in a small cottage just outside Modesto, Calif., for him to return from the war. Shortly after that return, they settled into family life in Amarillo, Texas, and eventually into the life of a traveling concert pianist and college music department dean. Ineta concentrated on essential family support while taking care of the business side of a small medical practice. They both tremendously enjoyed their 38 years in Amarillo, and their many near and dear friends both inside and outside of the arts.

Ineta and Bob retired in 1989, moved to Mann Creek from Amarillo and joined with her older sister to care for the “old Adams place,” south of the Mann Creek Store. There Ineta practiced her wonderful way with flowers, fruits, and vegetables, and Bob learned “the way of the cattle rancher.” It was at the old Adams place in 1992 that the love of her life quietly passed away in his sleep. Ineta courageously struggled with a debilitating bone marrow disease for the last year of her life, but Thursday she quietly passed away in her sleep.

Ineta is survived by her son Bob Jr. of Boise and daughter Sarah currently of Flagstaff, Ariz., two sisters, Lorene and Neola, two nieces, and numerous cousins and friends.

Per her wishes, there will not be funeral services, and per their wishes, Ineta’s and Bob’s ashes will be commingled and given back to the earth in “a beautiful place of our son’s choosing.” Your remembrance can be expressed by contributing to the Robert E. and Ineta A. Hoffman Memorial Scholarship fund, c/o The Amarillo College Foundation, P.O. Box 447, Amarillo, TX. 79178. Thomason Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

From The Idaho Statesman Boise,  Idaho · Saturday, March 11, 2006