Mary Sjostrom ran popular ice cream shop

Everything in Mary Jean Sjostrom’s family had to start from scratch.

Whether it was the dresses that Sjostrom sewed for her two little girls or the ice cream parlor she opened with her husband, nothing was handed to Mary and her family, it was worked for.

“We were loved and cared for, just like in our mom’s upbringing,” said daughter Jennifer Whittaker. “It didn’t matter that the money wasn’t there. We just never felt like we were left out or underprivileged by any means.”

After working as a bookkeeper for the family-owned realty company and opening the well-known Mary Lou’s Ice Cream Parlor with her husband, Louis, Mary Sjostrom died May 23 at age 82.

Sjostrom had five children, daughters Jennifer Whittaker and Pamela Zack, and sons Steven, Michael and Jeffrey. She was married for 46 years to Louis Sjostram, who preceded her in death in 1992.

Whittaker said she’ll always remember her mother as being “dedicated, sincere, dependable and reliable. You just never questioned if she would be there or if she would stand by her word.”

That resilience and dependability was born out of a childhood in St. Maries, where Mary Sjostrom grew up and went to school.

She moved to Spokane to attend business school, where she met Louis. He was working at the Waikiki Dairy at the time, but before long he opened his own milk delivery business, Van’s. Later he started a real estate business, named L&M Realty after Louis and Mary.

Sjostrom did bookkeeping for the realty operation. Around then, Louis was building a home near Fifth Avenue and Blake Road, and the family lived in the basement while the home was under construction.

“She was doing everything that she had to do in the basement, between the canning and the caring for all of us and the housecleaning and sewing,” Whittaker said. “She was always patient. Considering everything she dealt with, I’d say her patience was high, almost unbelievable.”

After the real estate business, Mary and Louis took a big gamble and bought an old homestead at the corner of Evergreen and Broadway. They spent time remodeling the home, then turned the location into the familiar red-and-white Mary Lou’s Ice Cream Parlor. The Lou came from from her husband’s name.

She would help with nearly all of the operations at the ice cream parlor, Whittaker said. She made the pralines for praline ice cream, and would help cook soups. She continued to do bookkeeping and would help with large parties, many of them family reunions.

“It was a big investment, a big project,” Whittaker said. “They’d live there, eat and sleep. That was their business.”

After selling the ice cream parlor, Sjostrom began to volunteer frequently at Valley Hospital and was a member of Valley View women’s golf club, the 9 Holers.

And from high school on, she kept a pen pal, with whom she kept regular correspondence.

Whittaker said many of the details of her mother’s life have been surfacing in the last few weeks, many of them unknown.

“We’re just learning more and more things,” she said.

Sjostrom was an active and healthy person as well as an artistic one. She enjoyed oil painting and became skilled at designing sweatshirts, Whittaker said. Every Christmas she would make individual ornaments for her 10 grandchildren.

“She always tried to make everybody feel special,” Whittaker said.

Throughout her life, and especially in her marriage, Sjostrom was an anchor, Whittaker said.

“My mom was the one who kept the whole thing going,” she said. “My dad was the idea person, my mom was the one who helped carry them through. She incorporated the stability of everything.”