Lorna Tonack

Lorna Leta Tonack (Umpleby), 85 of Baker City, left this life, June 7, 2025, due to complications of pneumonia.  She requested a family only graveside service at Mount Hope Cemetery.

Lorna was born May 10, 1940, at Anthony, Kansas to Harold and Edna Umpleby. Her family moved from Kansas to Oregon's Willamette Valley in 1947, and then in 1958 the family moved to a ranch just outside of North Powder. She received a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Oregon College (now Eastern Oregon University) where she met and married Ronald Tonack in 1960. She went on to earn a master’s degree and completed many hours of further education, as she loved learning.

Lorna also loved to teach. Her teaching career began at North Powder School and took her to  Kuna, ID and then to Drain, OR while her husband received his Master’s Degree in Special Education from the University of Oregon at Eugene. Ron and Lorna then moved to Anaheim, California, where Lorna sewed professionally. After two years, they returned to Salem, Oregon where she taught sewing at the local community college.

While worshiping at the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in Salem, Ron and Lorna felt God’s leading to teach at The Alliance Academy at Quito, Ecuador, South America, where Lorna taught many different subjects in the junior and senior high school. Ron and Lorna and their family returned to Eastern Oregon in 1980, when they both became teachers at Baker High School. She started in the English department, but when the Spanish department was going to be cut due to lack of a qualified teacher, Lorna stepped up and began her Spanish teaching career, continually striving to learn more and expand her Spanish teaching abilities.  After leaving Baker School District she taught at Blue Mountain Community College and offsite at many of the smaller area high schools through distance learning. Late in her career, she taught Spanish for many years at North Powder School until she retired in February of 2024 at the age of 83! Lorna will be fondly remembered as a beloved teacher by many of her students.

Lorna was preceded in death by her husband, Ron, in 2002.  Survivors include an older sister: Linda VanOrden of Junction City, OR, a younger brother, Lyle Umpleby (Sharon) of North Powder; daughters and sons-in-law, Gretchen and Michael Surber of Post Falls, Idaho, and Johanna and Jeff Young of Baker City; 5 grandchildren, and 3 great-granddaughters.

In lieu of flowers, Lorna asked that memorial contributions be made to North Powder Charter School through Tami’s Pine Valley Funeral Home, P.O. Box 543, Halfway, OR 97834. Online condolences can be shared at www.tamispinevalleyfuneralhome.com