Victoria Wood Benefield

Victoria Wood Benefield, 74, passed away Tuesday, June 18, 2019 at St. Joe’s Hospital in Lewiston, Idaho, after a five-year battle with Dementia and long-term diabetes. She was surrounded by her children and grandchildren.

She was born March 14, 1945, in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and was the third of five children. Her parents, Arthur Roy Cyr and Dorothy Jean Cyr, were World War II veterans. Her father was in the Navy and her mother was in the Coast Guard.

Sometime in her childhood, the family moved to the Bay Area, California. She married Earl Burnell Canning in 1963, and they had four children. They moved to Sacramento in 1970 where they divorced in 1976. She then married William (Bill) McBroom, and she focused her life on raising her children. They then moved to Plains, Montana, during the summer of 1979, where Bill passed away in January of 1980.

Despite this devastating heartbreak, she moved her children to Paradise, Montana, to work at Quinn’s Hot Springs to support her family as a single mother. She began working at Clark Fork Valley Hospital as a Dietician Assistant in 1983 until 1989.

In 1988, she met and married Herman Wood. They moved to Nevada, Missouri, in 1995 then divorced in 1999. She remained in Missouri where she found her passion for Jesus Christ in the LDS church. During this time, she decided to go back to school, receiving her GED on July 22, 2002.

Victoria was always an avid writer and accepted a position with the Vernon County Times writing the Senior Living Corner in August of 1999 through December of 2008. She moved to Grangeville, Idaho, in 2008 to be closer to her grandchildren and found what she considered to be her true home in the town of Grangeville. She would often be seen walking briskly through town and always had a friendly smile and a helping hand. This is also where she found her true calling of teaching young children about Jesus Christ through the LDS Church. She married Robert Benefield in 2014.

She is preceded in death by her parents, Arthur and Dorothy Cyr; sister, Sanda Brown; and brother, Roy Junior. She is survived by her husband, Robert Benefield of Grangeville; sister, Jean Privett of Butte; brother, George of California; son, Richard Canning of Spokane; daughters Christine Miller of Kamiah, Barbara Graziano of Helena, and Nichole Eaves of Missoula; 11 grandchildren; and 7 great-grandchildren.

Services will be held on Friday, June 28, 2019 at Blackmer Funeral Home. The viewing is at 8:30 a.m. with services following at 10 a.m. All are welcome to proceed to the cemetery following the service. There will be a casual reception afterward at a location to be announced at the service.

The family asks, in lieu of flowers or charitable gifts, that donations be sent in Victoria’s name to either the Alzheimer’s Association or the American Diabetes Association. Arrangements are under the direction of the Blackmer Funeral Home, Grangeville. You may submit condolences to family to blackmerfuneralhome.com.