Search Archived Marriage Records
Lovell, Katherine
Katherine R. Lovell of Silverdale, Wash., died April 29 in Silverdale. She was 69.
Lovell was born July 30, 1934 to Edwin and Ruth (Brown) Rowley in Redwood City, Calif. She graduated from Burlingame (Calif.) High School.
Lovell worked for Pan Am Airlines for 26 years until she retired in 1992.
She married
her husband Joseph Lovell on Sept. 29, 1961, in Waikiki, Hawaii. She loved knitting and cats, especially her cat Coco.
Lovell is survived by her husband Joseph Lovell of Silverdale; her brothers, Richard Teames and wife Lorena of Cambell River, B.C. and James Rowley of Silverdale; her sister, Marlene Kennedy and husband Doran of Keyport; her neices, Taunya Welch and husband Kevin of Bremerton, and Sherry Cordiner and husband Russell of Hansville.
Donations can be made to the charity of the donor’s choice. Arrangements under the direction of the Stone Chapel at Cherry Grove Memorial Park in Poulsbo.
Shotwell, Jacob
Jacob Richard Shotwell of Charlotte, N.C., died Tuesday, April 6 at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. while undergoing a cord-blood stem cell transplant. The former Bremerton resident was only 14 years old and battled life-long illnesses caused by being born immune suppressed.
Jacob was the son of Luz Saunders of Charlotte and Steve Shotwell of Hansville. Born in Bremerton on March 7, 1990, he attended Naval Avenue and Crown Hill elementary schools and underwent treatment at Children’s Hospital in Seattle.
In 1998 he moved to Charlotte and attended Kennedy Middle School while undergoing treatments at Duke and Hemby Children’s Hospital.
He is survived by his parents; sister Kayla; brother Najee; stepmother Melody Shotwell of Hansville; stepfather Tony Langley of Charlotte; grandparents Frank and Ginna Shotwell of Bremerton; aunt Stacie and uncle Chris Schmechel of Mountain View, Calif; and stepbrothers and stepsisters Michelle, Cameron, Jon, Crystal, Kayla and Nicole, all of Hansville.
A celebration of Jacob’s life is planned for May 16 at the Hansville Community Center. Services are Saturday, April 17, in Charlotte. An online memorial is available at www.caringbridge. org/nc/jacob.
Memorial donations can be made to the Ronald McDonald House, 506 Alexander Ave., Durham, N.C. 27705 or the Child Life Department at Duke University.
Earl Brockett, 92
Earl E. Brockett of Poulsbo, Wash. died Wednesday, March 31, 2004 at Martha & Mary Health Care Center of natural causes. He was 92.
Brockett was born on Sept. 25, 1911 in Hartsville, Tenn. to Oscar and Minnie (Gross) Brockett.
After graduating from Hartsville High School in 1929, he joined the U.S. Navy and rose to the rank of lieutenant commander over a 30-year career where he spent time on aircraft carriers and destroyers before becoming a submariner in 1939.
He also married
his wife Alyce (Berger) Brockett in Tijuana, Mexico in 1939.
Upon retiring in 1959 from the Navy, Brockett worked as a real estate broker and had his own business doing appraisals until 1987.
He was a member of the Vinland Lutheran Church in Poulsbo, Retired Officers Association, the Nile Temple in Seattle, the Masons in Hansville, Multiple Listing Service, Appraisal Institute, the Clallam County Board of Equalization and investment clubs in Seattle, Port Angeles and Poulsbo. He also enjoyed learning, hunting, fishing and working on his beefalo ranch in Port Angeles.
He is survived by his wife; sons Terry Brockett of Curtice, Ohio, Bruce Brockett of Eagle River, Alaska, and Ralph Brockett of Port Angeles; grandchildren Ted, Alan, Mitch, Dannah, Jennifer, Glenn, Brent and Loni; three great-grandchildren and his brother, Oscar “OG” Brockett of Austin, Texas.
A memorial service was Monday in Poulsbo, followed by a committal service Tuesday at Tahoma National cemetery in Kent, Wash. Memorial donations can be made to Martha & Mary Health Care Center, 19160 Front St. N.E., Poulsbo, WA 98370. Arrangements under the direction of the Stone Chapel at Cherry Grove Memorial Park in Poulsbo.
Bill Johnson: a mathematics teacher who really counted
Thursday, April 26, 2001
Bill Dean Johnson was every anxious math student's prayer answered.
Encouraging and avuncular, the Shoreline Community College math professor would enliven algebra and statistics lessons with stories about the history of mathematics.
"Students loved him because he was just a regular grandfather, " said Fred Prydz, assistant division chairman of mathematics at Shoreline. "He could really calm people down if they had math anxiety. They would think: `How could math be so horrible and terrible if such a nice man is teaching it?' "
But while he liked math, his true love was just teaching.
"He was a people person. His love was directed to his students, " Prydz said. "He could have taught them anything."
Mr. Johnson died Saturday (April 21) of a heart attack. He was 77.
"It's such a loss, " said Shannon Flynn, science and mathematics division chair at Shoreline, where Johnson taught for 25 years before retiring in 1994.
Mr. Johnson grew up in various small towns in Kansas and served in the Army in China, India and Burma during World War II. After a decade working as a payroll auditor for an insurance company, he decided to get his master's degree in mathematics. He liked the purity of math, his son Ken said. "He liked the fact that there's an answer that's irrevocably right, and that there's logic and structure and you can drive toward the right answer."
He and his wife, Dolores, moved to Seattle in 1969, when he took the Shoreline teaching job.
An insomniac, he would often be in his office by 4 or 5 a.m., and as soon as students started arriving on campus, a few would invariably stop by to chat.
During office hours, he usually had a line of students waiting to talk about math or the Sonics or life in general.
He made it a point to reach out to his students, especially those who were from other countries. Seeing, for instance, Indian students in his class, he would regale them with the story of self-taught Indian math genius Srinivasa Ramanujan. He would invite some of the foreign students and their families to his home for Easter and Christmas.
"He's one of the best teachers I've met in my lifetime, " said Tafesse Beyene, an engineer at Boeing and a former student of Mr. Johnson's from Ethiopia. "He was available almost any time and made sure everybody understood what was going on in class."
Even after retiring, he continued teaching - volunteering to tutor neighborhood kids, who called him "Buddy Bill, " and foreign students through the Shoreline School District.
"He was very giving of nature and of spirit, " Ken Johnson said. "He had the ability to recognize the sensibilities and needs of others and to respond appropriately."
In addition to his wife and children Ken, Kyle and Kay, Mr. Johnson is survived by three grandchildren.
Memorial services will be at 2 p.m. today at Calvin Presbyterian Church, 18826 Third Ave. N.W., Shoreline. Remembrances may be given to the church.
Bette Pastore co-founded City College
Wednesday, May 02, 2001
Elizabeth "Bette" Anne Pastore wasn't a motivational speaker, but she had a way of encouraging people to follow their dreams.
She helped thousands go back to school by co-founding City College, now known as Bellevue's City University. And in her roles as mother and grandmother, she was the matriarch who supported all aspirations.
"She never let anybody settle for anything less than they could do, " said Michael Pastore Jr., who recalled how his mother encouraged him to take flying lessons. "She really believed that if you wanted something, then there was no reason not to do it."
Pastore went on to earn his pilot's license and took his mother on several trips.
Mrs. Pastore died of complications from emphysema April 21 in Arizona, where she began spending part of her later years to be with her parents. She was 63.
Elizabeth Anne York grew up in Southern California and met her future husband, Michael Pastore, at a 1955 dance in El Centro.
"She came walking out of her room, and I fell in love with her, " her husband recalled of their first date two days later. "What can you say when lightning hits?"
They were married
two months later, and the couple moved to Seattle in 1967.
Together they started City College as a Seattle night school in 1973. They moved to Bellevue in 1981.
"He always called her his conscience, " said their son. "He'd have a brilliant idea and she'd tell him why it wouldn't work."
An idea the couple made a reality was holding City College classes on the Seattle-Bremerton ferry. "We were just talking about how to make education available wherever possible, and the idea came out of that, " said Michael Pastore.
While her husband acted as president of the university, Mrs. Pastore handled the school's advertising, marketing and media relations.
"Bette was the creative spirit of City University, " said Viola Tasler, president of the university's board of governors.
Art was Mrs. Pastore's true passion. She graduated from Burnley College of Art and specialized in pastel, charcoal and oil portraits.
"She didn't do posed pictures but (rather) the facial expressions of someone who was working or doing something, " said her son. "It was like she wanted to capture some look into their soul."
She was also active in the Bellevue Unity Church's Course of Miracles program.
Mrs. Pastore is also survived by her daughters, Christi Anna Cox and Maria Delisa El-Khatib, both of Bellevue; six grandchildren; her parents, Floyd and Helen York of Peoria, Ariz.; and sisters, Anna Knight and Bobby Kittridge, both of Sacramento, Calif., Sandy Mandrell of Phoenix, and Susie Fulmer of Glendale, Ariz..
Memorial services will be at 1 p.m. today at Green Funeral Home, 1215 145th Place S.E., Bellevue. Donations can be made to the American Lung Association of Washington, 2625 Third Ave., Seattle, WA 98121.
Andrew Obrastoff, brave teen
Saturday, May 12, 2001
Andrew Obrastoff had a real mouth on him.
The teenager was a wiseacre, always piping up to debate about politics or history, speaking in that little boy's voice that never really changed into that of a man because of the cystic fibrosis that clogged his lungs and kept him smaller than his peers.
But it was this voice that he used to make friends, to make jokes, to make people love him.
Andrew Theodore Obrastoff, who had battled the respiratory disease since birth, died last Saturday (May 5) of complications from a double lung and heart transplant almost six years earlier. He was 15.
"Andrew met with a lot of trouble in his life, and I don't mean just with his physical condition, " said his father, Theo Obrastoff. "But dealing with divorced parents, with two polarized families."
Andrew knit the two families together, his father said. Andrew was the central thing.
He was blonde-haired, blue-eyed and always light enough for his father to carry him. He loved music, trying to learn the trumpet even though his respiratory disease made it hard for him.
With the encouragement of his stepfather he took up T-ball, running his bases even when the exertion was tough on him, Obrastoff said. He liked model cars, even though he never got old enough to drive.
Andrew was a devout Christian, who liked to sit and read the Bible as much as he liked to play boxing video games on the Nintendo with his brother Jordan, 14.
His son had a certain brand of dark humor about illness and death, said Obrastoff, a theological teacher at Snohomish County Christian School where Andrew was a student, winning awards for academics and popularity.
He loved the TV show M*A*S*H, and when he learned the words to the theme song, "Suicide is Painless, " he wrote them down, changed them around, making them a bit brighter, and stuck them on the door of his hospital room with a sign that read, "You Must Read This Every Time You Enter The Room."
Andrew spent his life in and out of the hospital, and became close with many of the doctors and staff at Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center in Seattle.
When he was 9 and cystic fibrosis was close to killing him, he went in for a double lung and heart transplant at Stanford University. At the last minute, Andrew got scared.
"His doctor, Dr. Ron Gibson - he loves my son as much as I do - said to him, `Andy, you can do this, ' " Obrastoff remembered.
In the days that followed, Andrew rebounded from the operation. He called Gibson simply to say, "I can breathe."
But after about two years, organ rejection began to set in. He grew weaker, eventually having to use a wheelchair.
On one of Andrew's last mornings, he woke up and asked to be carried to the window to look outside. His father gingerly moved aside the IVs and tubes, wrapped him in a blanket and held him up. It was just an ordinary view of the trees outside the hospital, Obrastoff said. The father held a camera out in front of them and snapped a picture.
"He was an amazing kid to know, " Gibson said. "He packed more into his 15 years than other people do in their whole life."
A service was held Wednesday at Snohomish County Christian School in Mountlake Terrace.
Andrew is survived by his mother, Dianne Julia; father and stepmother Theo and Sharon Obrastoff; brothers Jordan and Ethan; stepfather Rick Silver; and grandfather, Andy Obrastoff.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be sent to the Children's Hospital, Cystic Fibrosis Research Department, 4800 Sandpoint Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105.
Tod Fujioka, family peacemaker
Friday, May 18, 2001
He was good at all those things that make for a complete life but would never make him famous or rich or, on most days, newsworthy.
He knew how to be happy. He knew how to relax and play. He was a peacemaker, a comforter, a kind presence wherever his feet took him. He knew how to make even his ailing mother laugh. Once, when medication made her face swollen, he told her, "Looks like you've been in with Mike Tyson."
It hurt for his mother to laugh.
Tod Alan Fujioka spent his last moments with his mother, Yaeko. He lived only a few miles from his parents' home in Renton and a short distance from Lindbergh High School, where he graduated in 1980. Mr. Fujioka's life rarely ventured far from where he was born and raised in South Seattle.
Through the years, his parents' home was still home base, and he often had lunch with them before going to work. Last Friday (May 11), mother and son had rib steak with white rice and a simple green salad.
Then he said he had to get ready for work. He said goodbye to his mother and a nephew who was visiting. To his younger brother Ross, he said, "I'll help you move on Monday."
Then he jumped into his car and drove off onto Petrovitsky Road. Within moments, Mr. Fujioka was dead at age 37, a victim in a head-on collision.
The accident that killed Mr. Fujioka tied up traffic most of the day. Two of Mr. Fujioka's siblings drove past the accident scene without realizing their brother was involved. They saw the report on TV news. Hours later they were informed.
One thing the entire Fujioka family agreed on - parents and six siblings - was that Mr. Fujioka was always there when family needed him.
Whether it was to settle a family conflict - "He was a natural mediator, " said brother-in-law Arnold Mukai - or to help a brother or sister move to a new house or apartment. With six siblings, someone was always moving, and Mr. Fujioka was there to help.
He was the same way at work. He was a checker at the QFC in Harvard Market on Capitol Hill. He had worked there for four years. He liked his work. He liked helping lost customers.
One of the gifts Mr. Fujioka had was knowing how to live peaceably in his own skin, family and friends said. Some people might say he lacked ambition, but those who knew him say he had a greater blessing.
He knew how to be happy in the moment, and in the exact place where he was. It was a Zen state without the Zen. And it wasn't like he had no aspirations.
His younger brother said Mr. Fujioka would have liked a way of living that would allow him to golf every day. Not just once a week, as he had done for years. He liked the quiet of the sport, the greenness, the smell of rain-cleansed air. He liked being outside.
In a written notice, the stunned family wrote, "We will miss your gentle and soft-hearted soul."
Mr. Fujioka is survived by his parents, Sueo and Yaeko Fujioka, of Renton; brothers, Timothy, Lane and Ross; and sisters, Joyce Mukai, Laurie Nakagawa and Tammy Fujioka.
Memorial services will be held at 2 p.m. tomorrow at Evergreen-Washelli Funeral Home, 11111 Aurora Ave. N., Seattle.
