Obituary: Wise, Eileen Viola (Shouse)
After a year at Mankato Business School in MN, she then attended Huron College in SD.
Early in WW II she worked at Fort Peck, MT, during which she saw a cover of Life magazine picturing women in uniform, leading her to apply and be accepted into the first class of Navy Waves.
Based in San Francisco and then Tacoma Navy Shipyards, she enlisted and later was recommended for and sent to officer training school at Smith College in MA.
She ended her Navy years as Lieutenant JG.
She then worked as executive secretary to the head of King County General Hospital (Harborview) in Seattle, until her marriage to Richard Wise, himself a Navy veteran, in Seattle in 1948.
Together they lived in Seattle, Garland, TX, and finally Spokane during Dad’s years with the National Weather Bureau.
Mom volunteered as room mother, PTA, Girl Scout leader, CASA volunteer, and the food bank and Meals on Wheels for years with Dad.
She served Northwood Presbyterian Church as a 50-plus year member and both as deacon and elder.
A voracious reader, she also loved music and travel, visiting the kids wherever we were, and eventually going to Europe and Britain six times.
Even when disabled from a stroke in 1996, she was still an “armchair traveler”, reading 5-9 books every week up until she died.
Eileen passed May 5th, 2013, in Spokane, WA.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Hiram and Bertine Flotree Shouse, four sisters and two brothers, husband Richard C. Wise in 1995, and son-in-law Daniel Davis in 2010.
She leaves behind a loving, living legacy in her children: Kathleen (Mike) Craig, Seattle, WA; Douglas (Vicki) Wise, Seattle; Sally (Mike) Almond, Jennifer Wise, and Nancy Davis, all of Spokane; seven grandchildren: Michael, Jason, Sean, Tara, Erik, Dustin, Christina; and great-grandsons: Gavin and Henry.
A public memorial to celebrate Eileen’s life will be held Saturday, June 8th, 1pm at Northwood Presbyterian Church, 6721 N. Monroe St. Memorials may be made to the church.
God blessed us with you in our lives.
We will always love and miss you….’till we meet again.