Michael Craig “Mike” Gneiting, 71, of Montana’s Sun River Valley and previously of Idaho’s Snake River Valley, has passed away peacefully due to heart-related natural causes. All are invited to join the family at a graveside service to remember Mike and to celebrate the life of that good guy.
Mike truly was a good guy and went about that quietly. He was a private person who liked a quiet life and who lived his life in his own way.
An extended family member who has lived near him for years says Mike would give you the shirt off his back and was always happy to lend a hand while expecting nothing beyond a hand shake and a thank you in return. Another nearby family member recently bumped into Mike in town and says Mike asked how everyone was doing and was happy to chat.
Some of his nieces and nephews remember Mike as an uncle with a good laugh who liked to tease, and his younger sister Tamara remembers him as someone who from an early age was able to make people smile.
Mike was born in 1954 in Blackfoot, Idaho and grew up helping on the family farm. He broke his leg as a young kid after falling from a farm truck and then figured out how to get around fast on his other leg and both hands. As a younger sibling, he liked laughing with and getting kindly teased by his big sister and oldest sibling Jeannie. He also liked to explore the outdoors with his big brother John. They once noticed in an area surrounded by lava rock an opening of a cave in the rock. They saw food dishes and other items down inside the cave and wanted to climb down to explore but didn’t have the right equipment to climb down. They then could never find that specific location again amidst all the other lava rock in the area. Mike liked to wrestle with his big brother Joe as a kid. All three brothers enjoyed bee bee gun battles with each other and were at least safe enough to wear goggles to protect their eyes. Mike also rode horses as a kid. His younger sister Tamara remembers riding on a horse with him and then both of them luckily getting off the horse right before it got pretty spooked by a bee and threw a fit.
Mike spent time with his family and others in outdoor settings such as a nearby canyon that his mom had also enjoyed as a kid. In the canyon, activities such as hiking, snowmobiling up a mountain slope to snow ski back down and gathering around for hot chocolate were a good mix. Mike also spent childhood summers in the outdoors and mountains of the Tendoy, Idaho area helping on the family’s cattle ranch.
Most of Mike’s school days took place in the Blackfoot area, and then he graduated from high school in Hermiston, Oregon. He participated in wrestling and football in high school and later spent a little time as a practice player of a junior college football team. As a young adult, he played for a while in a softball league with his brother Joe. Throughout his life he enjoyed watching football and other sports on tv. He was a 49ers fan and liked other teams too, often rooting for the team from further in the west in a given matchup. He wasn’t a fan of computers until he realized he could record more than one football game at the same time and store games to watch later thanks to his tv box.
Mike’s early adult days included time working as a bouncer and security guard in Hawaii, where he learned how to deescalate people who were acting up, including through words such as, “You don’t want to do that. It wouldn’t turn out good for you.” Mike also made time for such things as traveling with a buddy on motorcycles throughout several states across the country. Those younger days also included time working in Idaho’s harvest season and time working in the national parks of Idaho, Arizona and the Florida Everglades.
Mike’s final 25 or so years of work were in Montana. His employer of those years describes him as first and foremost very honest and very kind and says he was dependable and was a strong and hard worker who liked to do a good job. That employer says Mike did the work in ways that worked for him, “was just a good guy, period”, and only slowed down in his final year or two of work due to health issues. Mike did tree work for that employer for those 25 or so years and was a wood cutter on the side. When Mike started into that occupation of his final two and a half decades of work prior to retirement, he was doing so not long after his dad had died and was choosing to settle into Montana to make sure to be available for his mom.
Mike did things his own way, and throughout most of his life he didn’t let anyone other than himself cut his hair. That was the Mike hair cut. Also, Mike was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints starting in his childhood days and throughout the rest of his life. He recently mentioned some details of stories he remembered from scriptures. He also recently mentioned that he often feels the spirit of God in his life and lets it help him make decisions and figure out things to do. He wasn’t a big fan of crowds though and in his adult days was not a church goer. That didn’t change one bit the fact that he had an innate sense of wrong and right, realized the importance of being kind and respectful to others, and maintained throughout his life an appreciation for good principles that he started learning in his earliest childhood days.
Mike also had an awareness of and denounced such things as racism and unkind treatment toward any individual or group of people. In his opinion, there was no room for such thinking and behavior toward others. He knew that sometimes people see through a lens that makes others seem different or less than, and he knew that everyone deserves respect and kindness and that there is much more to people than what others might see when they judge a book by its cover.
As much as Mike appreciated good people, he also appreciated good food and was a good cook throughout his adult years.
He also enjoyed the outdoors throughout his life and was aware of geographic and historical details of many areas but especially areas where he’d spent time, including both the Idaho side and the Montana side of the mountains of his childhood summers on the ranch. He described a perfect setting as a small cabin near a stream in the mountains of Idaho. He enjoyed the peacefulness and beauty of spending time alongside rivers and in mountains and for a stretch of time several years ago talked a lot about wanting to capture nature through photography. He also for a time talked about the idea of creating an outdoor recreational picnic area for the community. Those interests of the moment reflected Mike’s long-term love of the outdoors.
Mike had a tender heart for animals and earlier this year took on the challenge without hesitation to provide attention and care to some kittens to help them be tame and eventually ready for adoption. The kittens seemed to love Mike, and he talked about the possibility of eventually providing foster care to other kittens and cats needing attention and care while waiting to be adopted.
Those who got to know Mike well throughout the years enjoyed chats with him and saw his sense of humor, his integrity and his kindness. In recent years, he liked to talk about his interests and tell stories about his younger days. He talked about football, about old friends and girlfriends from his young days in Hawaii and elsewhere, about locations of his childhood, and about classic cars, his animals, and various other things that mattered to him.
The family wishes to thank everyone who has provided friendship, support and kindness to Mike throughout his life and especially in recent years.
Mike is survived by his younger sister Tamara and her family and by the families of his other siblings. He was preceded in death by his older sister Jeannie, by his older brothers John and Joe, and by his parents, Derrell and Dorothy.
In her own final years prior to death, Mike’s mom Dorothy always looked forward to and talked about wanting to have more family reunions. If life does continue beyond death and if the other side does exist and if that little lady has anything to do with it, she just might arrange a little choir of family and friends on the other side for the day of Mike’s upcoming graveside service. She might even recruit Mike to be in the choir if he’s willing to sing. If she does arrange such a choir, that choir might very well be on the other side singing along with the lyrics of the closing song that will be sung at Mike’s graveside service, “God Be with You Till We Meet Again”. And those singing from the other side might be directing those lyrics toward all of us who are at the same time directing the lyrics toward Mike. Till we meet again, Mike.
The graveside service to celebrate Mike’s life will be held Saturday Sep 13, 2025 at noon at the Sun River Cemetery in Sun River, Montana. All are invited to attend.
Donations in honor of Mike can be made to the Great Falls non-profit organization Pet Paw-see and to Bozeman’s Heart of the Valley Animal Shelter. Also, inquiries in honor of Mike can be made to those and similar organizations to learn steps to take to help provide care to animals waiting to be adopted. Mike would be happy to learn of such donations and efforts.
To share condolences, click here to visit the Croxford Funeral Home website.
