Remembering my Mom

Mom's 90th Birthday party, 2009 with four of her grandchildren & two great-grandchildren

Mom at her 90th birthday party, 2009.

My mother* passed away yesterday morning after more than a year of declining health and I thought it might be nice to put up some pictures and a little something about her life. My daughter helped pare it down to this short biographical sketch.

Mom, 1919

It is hard to see but she is wearing a tiny baby ring on her right hand and some sort of bracelet on her right wrist. She had a locket and another bracelet that have teeth marks in them so she must have worn them when she was very little and just getting her baby teeth.

Mom, ca 1923

She is wearing a small locket and a bracelet in this photograph. I know that my Grandmother liked to dress up so it shouldn't be surprising that she dressed Mom up with jewelery too.

Our beautiful Mom left us 24 November 2011 to join our Dad and other loved ones who have gone before. Mom was born 15 March 1919 in Seattle. Left motherless within a week of her birth, Mom was adopted by her mother’s aunt and uncle. She attended Madrona grade school and Garfield High School in Seattle, skipping a couple of grades and graduating early. She met our Dad when she was 16, and they married one month after her 20th birthday.

Mom, ca 1935

Mom was a talented artist and did amazing pet portraits in pastels. She loved cats, especially Maine Coon cats of which we had several over the years. When she was a girl she played baseball and in her later years was a Mariners fan. She taught herself to knit and made wonderful warm sweaters. After Dad died in 1970 she worked at Seattle University. She married a second time in 1976 and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. After her second husband died in 1993 she settled in Tumwater, Washington. At the time of her death she was living at Olympics West Retirement Center where the staff and hospice nurses have been unfailingly kind and compassionate.

Mom is survived by her two children, five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Mom is also survived by her sister, a niece, a nephew and her dearest friend for 88 years.

We love you Mom and we will miss your smile, wit, intelligence, humor and strong determination (not to mention your pies and cookies) but we know there are others welcoming you home who have missed you too. Dad must be very happy indeed to have you back with him.

Mom & Dad on their 25th Wedding Anniversary, 1964

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Note:

* A more complete obituary is on-line at http://www.funeralalternatives.org/Obit_Results.asp?ObitKey=2504.

A short obituary appeared in the Olympian newspaper.
Mom requested no funeral or memorial service.