Elizabeth Goodart

Elizabeth Margaret Boylan Goodart was born October 22, 1936, in Rapid City, South Dakota to her parents Charles Addy and Gertude Richardson Mulleague Boylan. She died at home January 11, 2026, in Newcastle, Wyoming.

Although born in South Dakota, (her grandparents had a homestead in Piedmont) the family relocated to Lynwood, California when Elizabeth was two years old. Elizabeth remembered anti-aircraft guns near Long Beach, California. She only heard them a few times and said they were very loud. Because of this she never enjoyed the sound of fireworks. She experienced air-raid sirens going off and having to turn off all the lights in the house. If they were driving when the sirens sounded, they had to pull over and turn off the headlights. She remembered sitting in the car with her mother for over two hours one night.

Elizabeth was homeschooled, where her mother taught her to read. Because California required children to go to kindergarten before entering public school, she attended a parochial school first, and placement was made in the second grade because of her reading ability. Reading was a lifelong passion and pastime for her. Elizabeth graduated from Lynwood Academy High School in Lynwood, California, she also attended Pepperdine University for Accounting and later transferred to the University of South Dakota at Springfield, South Dakota.

The family often traveled back to South Dakota to see family and enjoyed summer vacations in the Black Hills. They had a cabin just up the road from the Goodart family in Hill City. She met Tom at a local dance where he was stamping hands as people came in. It was his habit to stamp the left hand of the girls to look for the absence of a wedding ring, after which he would ask the pretty girls for a dance. This is how they met, and the beginning of their love story. They married in Rapid City, South Dakota, May 25, 1957, and enjoyed nearly 47 happy years together before Tom’s death in 1999.

While Tom was teaching school, Elizabeth was raising boys, David, Robert, and Douglas. Each son as only 18 months apart, yet each born in a different state because of Tom’s teaching assignments, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Iowa, until Tom applied to a teaching job in Newcastle, Wyoming, which he held the rest of his career. We have many pictures of Tom and Elizabeth in formal attire from their days of chaperoning high school Proms.

Elizabeth was talented at handiwork from Crewel embroidery, knitting and crocheting, to tatting her own lace and sewing. She made lots of pretty decorations and crafts to adorn her home and gifts. She recently enjoyed tying quilts at her church for donation projects. She was skilled at wallpapering and painting and enjoyed working alongside her husband in various remodeling projects over the years. She built her own kitchen cabinets while she was in her 60’s.

Her boys remember her being very independent and self-sufficient. Even though she was of small stature, she could change a truck tire by herself, even if she had to jump up and down on the lug wrench to get it to turn.

She was an animal lover from a young age. She had cats and dogs, a guinea pig and even a racoon at one point. She walked her dogs every day and enjoyed doing so even into her late 70’s, when she would walk to the post office and back to check her mail.

She enjoyed traveling with her family. She and Tom took their family to Washington D.C. and to Florida to Disney World. Mostly they enjoyed time spent camping with their boys in the Black Hills. Later in life she and Tom enjoyed camping at Hart Rach in their motorhome, as well as trips abroad to Hawaii and Europe while Doug was stationed there. They also enjoyed a wagon train adventure where they made several lifelong friends.

Elizabeth got her license to sell insurance in 1976 and her own agency with Farmer’s Union for many years. She also operated the Credit Union from the same office which Tom had remodeled on one floor of the Egert Hotel, which was one of their real estate ventures.

Elizabeth was a member of Christ the King Lutheran Church, and held many positions of responsibility over the years, including treasurer, head of Altar Guild, women’s Bible study group, choir member, and kitchen lady to name a few.

Over the years she served in the community with Hospice, BREAD, Home Loving Care, Weston County Historical Society, Alley Cat Rescue, and many others. She was 2011 Person of the Year in Newcastle for her work in the BREAD office.

Even in her last 15 years she still had rental properties and at one point was part owner in a trucking business with her friend, Frank Coleman.

She was preceded in death by her parents, one sister, her husband Tom, Tom’s parents, his brother, sister, two brothers-in-law, a sister-in-law, and a baby nephew.

She is survived by her three sons; Dave (Deb), Bob (Colleen) and Doug (Gail), and has ten grandchildren, 31 great-grandchildren, and two great-great-granddaughters, as well as one brother-in-law, one sister-in-law, and several nieces and nephews.

Elizabeth will be interred with her husband at Black Hills National Cemetery in Sturgis, South Dakota.

She will be dearly missed by her friends and loved ones.