Search Archived Marriage Records
Virginia Dearborn loved literature and friends
Saturday, July 07, 2001
Her friendship was almost like a badge of honor.
"I met her in the '50s, " said John Voorhees of Seattle.
"I'm her almost-oldest friend, " said Joyce Hardy of Sea Ranch, Calif.
"I've known her for quite awhile - almost 50 years, " said Audrey Spady of Seattle.
Whether exchanging weekly letters, getting season tickets to the Seattle Repertory Theatre or making an annual pilgrimage to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, friends of Virginia Dearborn were friends for life.
Miss Dearborn died Wednesday (July 4) at the Care Center hospice at Kelsey Creek in Bellevue. She was 81.
Born in Seattle, Miss Dearborn graduated from Queen Anne High School and from the University of Washington.
She taught at Lake Washington and Sealth high schools and was head of the English department at Ballard High School. At Ballard, Miss Dearborn taught a creative-writing course that inspired many of her students.
"She loved literature, and she could convey that love, " said Roger Whitlock of Honolulu. After taking Miss Dearborn's class at Ballard, Whitlock went on to become a professor of English at the University of Hawaii.
"Passion is a word that really characterizes Virginia, " said Hardy, who was often a passenger in Miss Dearborn's midnight-blue Ford convertible while they were students at the UW. "If she was reading a book, it was the most marvelous book ever written, and you would hear all about it in great detail. And if she was reading a poem, it was the most fabulous poem she'd ever read."
After retiring from Sealth in 1971, Miss Dearborn continued to teach poetry and classic literature at the Women's University Club in Seattle.
"She had a whole aura about her that was very warm and kind of sunshiny, " said Judy Donnelly, the club's assistant manager. "There were a lot of people who would take classes here mainly because she was involved."
Miss Dearborn was known for her astute wit and for her ability to recite poetry and remember song lyrics.
While in her 70s, she held informal Shakespeare gatherings with a dozen friends.
"She taught me, after all these years, an appreciation of Shakespeare, " said Nita Dootson of Redmond, who went to high school with Miss Dearborn. "She did such a beautiful job of reading, interpreting and actually acting the parts. ... She did it in such a wonderfully amusing way."
Central to Miss Dearborn's identity were her numerous friends.
"She cultivated many, many friends from many, many walks, and it was important to her to keep those friends and share with them, " Hardy said.
"She'd been in the hospital since the first of the year, and I always asked, `Who came today?' Then she'd list off all the people who'd visited her, " recalled Voorhees, a former Seattle Times television critic. "She loved the fact that she was sort of holding court in her hospital room."
Miss Dearborn is survived by her brother, William Barbour Dearborn of Tacoma, and many friends.
A memorial service is scheduled Aug. 29 at the Women's University Club. Call 206-623-0402 for details.
Donations can be made in Miss Dearborn's name to the Women's University Club, 1105 Sixth Ave., Seattle, WA 98101.
Garrett Eddy was conservationist, timberman
Friday, July 13, 2001
Conservationists and timber executives are often bitter enemies, but Garrett Eddy was a rare combination of both. The former president and chairman of Port Blakely Tree Farms in Seattle was a pioneer in tree research and in making logging more environmentally sensitive.
Mr. Eddy died July Fourth in Seattle after a long battle with lung cancer. He was 85.
"Garrett Eddy believed we could have our cake and eat it, too, in terms of being able to have a viable forest industry while at the same time maintaining and conserving biodiversity, " said Neal Wilkins, a wildlife biologist with the company until 1998.
Jay Hair, former president of the National Wildlife Federation and the World Conservation Union, was so impressed by Port Blakely's policies that he joined the company's board in January.
"They have been as environmentally responsible and friendly a company as any in North America, " Hair said. "Garrett Eddy's greatest legacy is the values of conservation and sustainable development that the company continues to reflect. He was an environmentalist before we knew what the word environmentalist meant."
Mr. Eddy was born June 8, 1916, in Seattle, the son of early Seattle residents John Whittemore and Ethel Garrett Eddy.
The Eddy family bought Port Blakely Mill, founded in 1864, in 1903. Today, Port Blakely Tree Farms is a forestry and real-estate-development company.
During the 1940s and 1950s, Mr. Eddy was one of the pioneers in research in thinning tree stands, or cutting down smaller trees so larger ones could grow bigger, said Jim Warjone, chairman and chief executive officer of the company.
Port Blakely also broke with standard timber-industry practices by instituting long rotation patterns, Hair said. For example, Douglas firs were allowed to grow for as long as 80 years instead of the standard 40 years. That meant both higher-quality wood and a better habitat for wildlife, especially birds.
Birds were Mr. Eddy's great love. His contributions in the 1980s and '90s of more than $2 million to the University of Washington's Burke Museum transformed its bird-research center into one of the most prestigious in the world, said Sievert Rohwer, curator of birds at the museum and professor of zoology at the University of Washington.
Mr. Eddy funded 20 to 30 ornithology-research trips to Russia in the 1990s, he said, and participated in two of them, collecting bird samples, drying out specimens and setting up camp.
Mr. Eddy served as president of Port Blakely from 1952 until 1980 and as chairman of its board from 1981 to 1996.
He continued going to his Seattle office two or three days a week until early this year, when he became too sick to do so, Warjone said. At his office, he continued to do research and dispense advice to people such as Court Stanley, chief forester for Port Blakely.
"I could come to him with an idea, and he always had either already done that, considered that and not done it, or had some important insight into it, " Stanley said.
Mr. Eddy is survived by a son, John W. Eddy II; a daughter, Barbara Ethel Eddy; and two grandsons. His wife, Mary Ford Eddy, died in 1990, and another son, Garrett Edward Eddy, was killed in combat in Cambodia in 1970.
Services were held Monday at Epiphany Parish of Seattle.
Charles McNeill won hearts teaching, playing bagpipes
Friday, April 20, 2001
Charles McNeill, 73, a kindhearted Scottish native who immigrated to Seattle more than 50 years ago, was a legend in the local Scottish community.
Proud of his heritage, he joined virtually every area Highland game and Caledonian Society, and played in nearly every bagpipe band of note. And for more than a half-century, he taught hundreds - if not thousands - of students the art of the ancient musical instrument.
"He loved the bagpipes, and he taught that it was not just an instrument but also a hobby and a sport, " said Blake Parkinson, a 13-year-old student of Mr. McNeill's. "He was really energetic about it. He seemed to have a young spirit."
Mr. McNeill, who died unexpectedly of a pulmonary blood clot Sunday, was so committed to building a new generation of pipers that he often taught for free, according to friends and relatives.
"He was so good-hearted, so devoted and so interested in continuing the tradition that he charged just a minimal amount of money for his lessons, " said Greta Hewitt, Parkinson's mother.
Mr. McNeill was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1927. He and his older brother, James McNeill, both learned to play the pipes when they were very young, according to his son, James Charles McNeill of Seattle.
Mr. McNeill served as a piper in the Highland Light Infantry as a young man and in 1955 immigrated to the United States, joining his older brother who had already moved to the Puget Sound area.
The stoic and reserved Scottish man found work as a salesman for a downtown sporting-goods store, where he met Lois Diane Fulthrop, a pretty, redheaded graduate of Ballard High School.
The two married
and had two children.
Mr. McNeill was a gentle and committed father who was devoted to bedtime stories and pillow fights, according to his son. The family bought a house in Ballard, and Mr. McNeill advanced to a job in supply and warehousing.
Through it all, Mr. McNeill remained devoted to the pipes. He marched in countless parades and played with scores of bands. He was the pipe major of the Seattle Pipe Band, and he filled his house with memorabilia and music. He hung a knocker in the shape of a bagpiper on his front door, and he passed his passion on to his children.
His daughter, Margaret Ann McNeill Nelson, plays in the Tacoma Bagpipe Band along with her husband.
Mr. McNeill's wife died in 1995, and he redoubled his commitment to teaching and performing the bagpipes.
"Charlie believed that if you could get it into kids, it would become a lifelong thing for them, " said Stephanie Sprinkle, president of the Northwest Junior Pipe Band, which Mr. McNeill started.
"They might leave for awhile, but they would come back, and they would bring their kids or their grandkids with them. He wanted the tradition perpetuated."
Mr. McNeill is also survived by his son-in-law, Brian Nelson, and grandchildren Matthew Charles and Elizabeth Ann Nelson.
Also preceding Mr. McNeill in death was his brother James.
A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. tomorrow at Northminster Presbyterian Church, 7706 25th N.W., Seattle.
The Charles McNeill Memorial Piping Scholarship Fund has been established in his memory. Donations may be sent to McNeill Memorial, c/o Puyallup Valley Bank, 10413 Canyon Road E., Puyallup, WA 98373.
Barbara Okinczyc beat the odds time and again
Monday, July 30, 2001
With a sharp mind and bone-dry humor, Barbara Okinczyc constantly beat the odds from surviving the Germans to battling breast cancer. She was an advocate for people in need and never forgot her Polish roots, though it would be decades before she could return to her homeland. "She was a very courageous, very strong woman, " said Mrs. Okinczyc's daughter, Maggie Clark. "With everything in her life (her attitude was) `These are my cards so let's just get on with it.' "
Mrs. Okinczyc's health deteriorated over the past two years. Hospitalized three weeks ago, she passed away in her sleep at a Normandy Park nursing home Thursday (July 26). She was 76.
Mrs. Okinczyc was a young woman in German-occupied Poland during World War II. Her father, an engineer, died when she was a child, and her older brother was shot by German soldiers for distributing pamphlets. She never saw her mother after she left Poland in 1945.
During the war, Mrs. Okinczyc joined the Polish Home Army and was trained as a first-aid corpsman. She participated in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, when 50, 000 poorly armed Poles launched an insurgency against German troops Aug. 1, 1944. By mid-September, 20, 000 insurgents were killed, an additional 25, 000 injured. Most of Warsaw was in ruins, including the apartment building where Mrs. Okinczyc was living with friends.
On her only trip back to Warsaw, in 1990, Mrs. Okinczyc took her daughter to the place where a Nazi bomb had leveled her apartment.
"She had to go do something and told her friends she'd be back in an hour, " Clark said. "She came back and it'd been bombed and her friends were all dead."
Mrs. Okinczyc was captured and spent six months in a POW camp, forced to work in a factory where "she literally had to wash (automotive parts) in gasoline with her bare hands, " said Mrs. Okinczyc's son, Andy Okinczyc.
After Poland was liberated in 1945, Mrs. Okinczyc (born Barbara Gnoinska) became a soldier in the 2nd Polish Army Corps and was stationed in Italy, where she met and married
her future husband Romuald, an army lieutenant who died in 1977. The couple became "displaced persons" and moved to an English army camp where both their children were born. In March 1952, the family arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, aboard the "Ascania" and traveled by train to Vancouver, B.C.
In Vancouver, Mrs. Okinczyc worked as a housekeeper and a seamstress before training as a psychiatric nurse. The family later moved to Seattle, and Mrs. Okinczyc went back to school and became a medical technician, working at the University of Washington and Harborview Medical Center.
Mrs. Okinczyc battled and beat breast cancer 20 years ago and survived three heart attacks.
She was active in Seattle's Polish community, the Polish Veterans' Association and Polish Women's Auxiliary and volunteered as a translator for new immigrants.
Along with her son and daughter, Mrs. Okinczyc is survived by her daughter-in-law Cindy Okinczyc, son-in-law Wylie Clark, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Services will be at 11 a.m. Friday at St. Margaret's Church, 3221 14th Avenue West, Seattle.
Bert Grant, 73, Yakima's prime brewmaster, dies
Thursday, August 02, 2001
Bert Grant, who helped spark the nation's fascination with microbrews when he opened Yakima Brewing and Malting in 1982, has died. He was 73.
Mr. Grant, who railed against the relatively bland, uniform taste of nationally distributed beers, always carried a vial of hop oil in his pocket to add to run-of-the-mill beers he sometimes drank.
He settled in Yakima, in the heart of the nation's premier hops-growing region, about 20 years ago to make his own beers and sell them from his own pub.
Before him, U.S. beer drinkers were largely limited to major national brands or pricier imports, said Ray Klemovitz of the Master Brewers Association of the Americas.
"I remember his Imperial Stout, " Klemovitz said. "You'll never forget it once you drink it. It had a lot of hops in it."
Mr. Grant's tiny pub in downtown Yakima was considered the nation's first brew pub since Prohibition, said Paul Gatza, director of the Institute for Brewing Studies in Boulder, Colo. A brew pub makes and sells beer at the same location.
"He started a major cultural trend of restaurants including brewing facilities, " Gatza said. "He expanded the horizons of beer drinkers."
The pub was an immediate success in Yakima. The brewmaster himself sometimes clad in a kilt would often greet customers.
"In the brewing business he was a legend, " said Keith Love, a spokesman for Stimson Lane, the Woodinville-based maker of Chateau Ste. Michelle wines that bought Grant's in 1995.
Mr. Grant had suffered from a number of illnesses in recent years. He died at a nursing home in Vancouver, B.C., on Tuesday night.
Herbert L. Grant was born in Dundee, Scotland, on May 17, 1928, and to hear him tell it, he was born to brew.
He liked to say the doctor hoisted him by the heels, spanked his rear and said, "Bottoms up." He said his cradle was made from half of an oaken beer barrel.
He was 2 when his parents moved to Canada. A manpower shortage during World War II prompted him to leave school in 1945, at age 16, to work at a local brewery. He started at Canadian Breweries and then worked at Stroh Brewing in the United States.
In time, he became an independent brewing consultant with clients around the world. He also worked for hops companies, and his work often took him to Yakima.
He founded Yakima Brewing at age 54 and developed his line of Grant's beers, including his signature Scottish Ale. The tiny pub opened on the first floor of the brewery and drew large crowds that waited outside for a place at the handful of tables and bar stools.
Mr. Grant later moved his business across the street to Yakima's old train station.
Grant's beers eventually became so popular that he bottled them for distribution to other cities. He was pictured on the label, holding a glass of his beer.
Last year, Yakima Brewing produced 10, 000 barrels of beer. The brewery employs 10 people, the pub about 40.
Mr. Grant is survived by two sons and three daughters.
Phreda Staadecker, tops in horse-race world
Tuesday, August 14, 2001
Phreda Staadecker, the first woman horse-race commissioner in the United States, died at her Bellevue home Friday at 87.
The Seattle native had been a housewife and mother when her husband, Joel, died unexpectedly in 1964. Two months after his death, then-governor Albert Rosselini asked Mrs. Staadecker to complete her husband's term as Washington horse-racing commissioner.
The prestigious appointment required her to attend races at the three tracks in the state and to serve on national horse-racing committees.
It was a good fit. Her father, Abraham Sherman, had bred and owned racehorses. Mrs. Staadecker and her husband also were thoroughbred breeders and owners and had traveled with their champion to California, enrolling their children in nearby schools for the racing season.
She was a quick study at whatever she tackled, said her children.
With the support of her husband's clients, she took over his job as an account executive for Marsh & McLennan, a Seattle insurance brokerage. She studied his correspondence to understand the clients and at the same time studied for the state insurance examination. To her new knowledge, she added her own ability to handle people.
Tom Jocums, a managing director at the Marsh Advantage America insurance brokerage, said he learned how to handle irate clients by watching Mrs. Staadecker in action.
"People would call upset and their problem became her problem, " said Jocums. "Who wouldn't be enamored with that?"
She retired in 1991 at 77.
Charles Staadecker described his mother as optimistic and energetic, always ready to face new and bigger challenges. For years she was the leading force behind the Golden Age Club for Seattle Seniors, a group sponsored by the Council of Jewish Women. She was also a supporter of Northwest Harvest and would stand at the downtown Bellevue QFC during food drives, collecting donations.
She was a three-time women's golf champion at Glendale Golf Club in Bellevue and a physical-fitness enthusiast.
"Grams was into high-protein, low-carb diets before they became popular, " said grandson Jimmy Brazil. "I lived with her for about 10 summers. On a typical Saturday we would have grapefruit, a poached egg and melba toast for breakfast, play a set of tennis, hit a bucket of balls and then play nine holes of golf walking. Then we'd go for a swim."
Son Joel Staadecker said his mother was always encouraging him to work out.
"In recent years she had to give up tennis because of her eyesight, " he said. "Instead she would go to the Bellevue Club, where she was a charter member, and work out at 5 every morning. She would work out while reading the business page and then go to the Nautilus (weight) machines."
She frequently was at the finish line, cheering when her grandchildren competed in skiing or other sports.
She was featured in a 1986 Seattle Times story about style and fashion. Her secret to always looking stylish, she said, was to purchase on sale classic clothes that would last for decades.
Mrs. Staadecker graduated from Seattle's Franklin High School and briefly attended the University of Washington before going into the retail business. She moved to Portland to manage a clothing store and there met her husband, also a Seattle native.
Besides sons Joel and Charles, survivors include a daughter, Bonnie Brazil, six grandchildren and four nieces.
Services will be at 2 p.m. today in the chapel at the Hills of Eternity cemetery, 520 W. Raye St., Seattle. In lieu of flowers, the family requests remembrances to the Homeless Shelter, care of Temple De Hirsch Sinai, 1511 E. Pike St., Seattle, WA 98122.
