Robert Elfring

Robert “Bob” Neil Elfring, 93, of Glasgow, passed away Monday, July 7, 2025.

Born July 17, 1931, in Watertown, South Dakota to William Frederick and Carrie Marie (Jensen) Elfring. In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his first wife, Marcella (Sylvester) Elfring, son, Larry Elfring and all eight of his siblings. He is survived by his wife, Shirley Elfring, daughter, Debbie (Lon) Stratton, son, Dan (Melissa) Elfring. Grandchildren, Marcia (Jeff) Lynnes, Cody (Ashley) Elfring, Caitlyn (Forest) Miller and four great-grandsons and three great-granddaughters.

Bob’s dad was a farmer and during the “dirty 30’s” he lost the farm to taxes. His sister, Lillian, heard a dam was being built in Ft Peck, Montana with plenty of jobs. When Bob was two years old, his family moved from Watertown, South Dakota to South Bench, Montana where his dad went to work the Fall of 1933 cleaning brush out of Park Grove to dredge dirt for the dam. The family then moved to New Deal where Bob started school and eventually moved to Glasgow. While in 8th grade, Bob’s sister in South Dakota needed him to come and work on her farm which he did for a little over a year. After that, Bob moved from job to job - doing seismography to working as roughneck on oil rigs in Glendive, Montana.

February 1952, Bob married Marcella Sylvester and two weeks later was drafted into the Army during the Korean War. At their wedding reception, his sister, Beverly, asked Bob if he received the draft notice she forwarded to him. After the reception, he went to the post office and found the letter filed under A’s not E’s and had only two weeks to report to Butte at the military processing center. Bob and Tommy Lund took the train to Havre and later became life-long friends.

Bob spent two years in the Army at Darmstadt, Germany and was trained as a Combination Telephone Line Man. He left the Army, February 1954 and worked at Bolt Pontiac in Glasgow. During 1955-57 the surveying at Glasgow AFB began. Jim Turnland, the manager at Valley Rural Telephone, hired Bob to work putting in telephones at the Base. Bob worked there for 32 1/2 years and retired on July 1, 1998.

Bob met Shirley Rapos at Johnny’s Cafe. She asked him to come play pinochle and that started the next chapter in his life. They married in Sept 2007 and spent many years traveling from an Alaska Cruise and two bus tours to the East Coast. They bought an RV and traveled to Arizona. They spent winters in Arizona and summers in Glasgow before moving to Prairie Ridge Village in April 2017.

Bob started building wooden toys after retiring from Valley Rural Telephone. He was hand-crafting these toys from plans in the Toys and Joys Catalog. He was building these well into his 90’s and completed every one of them in the catalog totaling over 100 toys. He then took up the Wood Trick Puzzles. He was always a jigsaw puzzle person. He has completed over 150 Wood Trick puzzles that are on display at Prairie Ridge. In addition, Shirley had him build doll houses that he and Shirley donated to little girls in the community. All this is why he has become known as “Bob the Builder”.

Bob loved his family, country, community and is now going to be with the Lord. He died at home from natural causes with his family by his side.

Family will receive friends Friday, August 22, 2025, at Bell Mortuary 6-8:00 p.m. A memorial service will be held at 10:00 a.m., at  First Lutheran Church on Saturday, August 23, 2025, with Max Knodel officiating. Burial will take place in Highland Cemetery with military honors. Online condolences may be left for the family at bellmortuarymt.com.