Colleen Sharkey Riehm

October 10, 1948 - October 18, 2024

10/10/48 - 10/18/24

Colleen was born in Reno, NV at St. Mary’s Hospital to Jack and
Bernie Sharkey October 10, 1948. She was the fifth of six children and welcomed by her brothers and me.
Colleen left us on October 18, 2024 at the same hospital where she was born, 76 years and 1 week earlier.
She had spent many weeks in the hospital.
Growing up in a large family made for a chaotic, adventurous, loud, fun, wonderful, and memorable time in early Reno days.
We have so many family memories and no end of stories that we will share about Colleen and our growing up.
She attended schools in Reno, including receiving her degree in Accounting at University of Nevada, Reno and worked her way through school.
She has many life-long friends from her college days. During this time, she also met her future husband, Peter Riehm in Reno where he was attending flight school to become an airline pilot.
They were married on February 4, 1970 in Margate, New Jersey.
They moved to Nome, AK in 1975 where Pete flew as a bush pilot and Colleen worked as an accountant.
They left Alaska in 1985 and moved to Utah where Pete was an airline Captain for Evergreen
Airlines and colleen worked as an accountant. They moved to Winnemucca, NV in 2000 when Pete retired.
Colleen met friends wherever she went. She still has many close friends in all the places she lived.
She was an especially great cousin to large families on both our mother and father’s sides. She always was the family member who kept up with all the relatives.
She loved family reunions, and made the most amazing photo collages to display showing the previous gatherings. My children always referred to her as “part grown-up, part kid”.
She was a life-of-the-party family member.
Colleen was generous in every way. She lived her faith and never met someone she would not help. She had a list of people she prayed for and that list grew every day.
She volunteered with her Food Bank, her community service center, her church, St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Winnemucca, and her Altar society, and her County Fair.
She loved the small-town life and became friends with a great many people in Winnemucca, while still keeping in touch with family and friends with calls and letters. She crocheted so many gifts for new babies of family and friends.
Colleen is preceded in death by her parents, Bernie and Jack, her husband Pete, her brother, Tim Sharkey, and her sister-in-taw, Donna Sharkey. She is survived by her siblings: Shirley (Toby) Isler, Jack Sharkey, Chuck (Jill) Sharkey, Mary Ann Sharkey (Tim’s widow), and Jim (Michelle) Sharkey.
She also is survived by Pete’s sisters: Dorothy, Mary, Jane, and Susie. Colleen leaves many nieces and nephews, great nieces and nephews.
She always let them know how proud she was of all their accomplishments.
She has countless cousins and their families. She was very close to all her family and friends and we are still impressed with all the lives she touched.
If she touched your life, you were blessed and will remember her fondly.
A small family graveside service will be held in Reno where she will be buried at Our Mother of Sorrows Cemetery with our Mother, Father, and Pete.
A service will be held in Winnemucca at a later date.
We thank everyone who sent get-well cards, birthday cards, sympathy cards.
Each day we see how far-reaching our sister’s kindness was.
If you wish to honor our sister, donate to your favorite charity. Also, you could volunteer, try a new recipe, plant flowers, have lunch with friends, call or write your friends and family, go camping, read a book.
These were some of Colleen’s favorite things.