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06/15/2017 - Boise, ID, USA

(1925 - 2017)

Rita May Aguirre, age 92, of Boise, passed away at Plantation Assisted Living in Boise, on June 15, 2017.

The daughter of two Irish immigrants, Rita May (Carroll) was born in New York City on May 19, 1925. She was raised by a Catholic family, in an Irish neighborhood, located in the heart of the Bronx. Rita attended the private all girl's catholic school in New York, and she graduated in May 1943. Following high school, Rita stayed in the Bronx and attended Fordham University before she accepted a position in Paris, France, with United States Government where she remained through 1945. Rita met an Airman while residing in France and she accepted his offer to continue their relationship at the Mountain Home Air Force Base, in Mountain Home, Idaho, which had opened for operation two years prior (August 1943). 

Dressed in a New York "high-hat" and satin gloves, Rita stepped out of a Greyhound Bus to the dusty floor of Main Street, Mountain Home, in the summer of 1946. The Airman turned out to be a real "Apple-Ass," but unwilling to accept love's defeat, Rita stayed in Mountain Home. The family often laughed how Rita's path to Mountain Home started as a beautiful love story with an Airman in France, yet ended in Mountain Home, with a Basque sheepherder who had NO SHEEP. 

In true Rita May fashion, she ended up marrying that sheepless Basco, Joseph Aguirre, in Elko, Nevada, on October 4, 1946. Joseph and Rita owned and operated Joe's Club and Restaurant in Mountain Home, for 35 years, retiring in 1978. After retirement, Rita's daughter and son-in-law, Joann and Leonard Hoffman, took over the family business and Rita continued to assist in the family operation through 2001. Joseph Aguirre died on February 18, 1982, and Rita remained living in Mountain Home through 2005. Rita left Mountain Home in January 2005, and she moved to Planation Place in Boise, "To be closer to the action!" Rita spent the next 12 years entertaining those who she held near. 

Survivors include her two daughters, JoAnn Hoffman of Boise and Theresa Aguirre Wilson of Mountain Home; her son Frank Aguirre of Gresham, Oregon; grandson Brett Aguirre of Gresham, Oregon; granddaughters Regina Hoffman-Flock of Garden City, and Kelsey Sloan of Nampa; and great-grandchildren Bridget Aguirre, Julia Aguirre, Lilly Hoffman Flock, Lydia Hoffman Flock, Darren Sloan, and Brooke Lynn Sloan. 

A rosary will be held at 6:00 pm, on Thursday, June 22, 2017, at Rost Funeral Home, McMurtrey Chapel, located at 500 N 18th East, in Mountain Home. A funeral mass will be held at Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church, on Friday, June 23, 2017, at 11:00am, located at 342 E Jackson St., in Mountain Home.

(published on June 20, 2017 in Idaho Statesman, Legacy.com)