Shawn Vestal: Portraits of a community emerge from recent obituaries

One obituary is a portrait of a life. Several obituaries, taken together, form a portrait of a community.

Recent memorials in The Spokesman-Review tell the stories of a school lunch manager and a chef, a theologian and a carpenter, a train conductor and a draftswoman for the Manhattan Project.

The following summaries are drawn from those obituaries. (None of them included COVID-19 as a cause of death.)

Born near Trondhiem, Norway, Magne “Muggs” Oddmund Storro sailed to the United States with his mother and two brothers in 1928 and joined his father in Priest River. Muggs lived there until he enlisted in the Navy at age 17 and served aboard the light aircraft carrier USS Princeton during World War II, surviving the ship’s sinking in battle in 1944. He returned to Priest River and married Norma B. Cain; they were married for 65 years. He worked briefly as a chef before turning to woodworking and, eventually, homebuilding. After retirement, he moved with his wife to Otis Orchards to be near their daughter. He died March 5, one day before his 96th birthday.

Josephine Swanson was born in Denton, Montana, in 1923, the oldest of nine children. As a child, she would catch a wagon ride with a neighbor to a one-room schoolhouse. She was a good student who graduated as the salutatorian of her class at Moccasin High School. As a young adult, she traveled to New York City to help with the war effort, working at a factory that produced radar units. She eventually moved to Spokane, where she raised four children with her first husband. “Until the day of her death,” her obituary said, “she would note and verbally correct the spelling on signs and postings while riding as a passenger in the car.” She died March 14 at age 97.

He started as a dishwasher, but Gary Irwin Brown became one of the best-known chefs in Spokane. Born into a family whose Lilac City roots date back to the 1800s, Brown graduated from North Central High. He was executive chef at the Spokane Country Club and the Empire Club, and also worked at The Crescent, The Ridpath and other local establishments and was a charter member of the local chapter of the American Culinary Federation. “He was handsome, sharply dressed, great eyebrows, ‘Spokane-famous,’ a true family man, a great gift-giver and just a total sweetheart,” his obituary said. He and his wife of 43 years, Dorene, raised four kids. He died March 2 at age 81.

After earning a horticulture degree at Washington State College in 1954, Jean Koch took her first job at the Finch Arboretum – a post she relinquished when she married John Koch in 1955. A native of Tekoa, she moved around with John as he served as a Marine pilot during the turbulent years of the Vietnam War and raised the couple’s three children. They returned to Eastern Washington upon John’s retirement in 1975, and Jean worked in retail jobs, including at Hurd’s Grocery in Rockford and Jones Low-Priced Drugs in Spokane. She died Jan. 29 at age 88.

Leo Dorscher grew up on the family farm near Drake, North Dakota, the youngest boy of 13 children. He graduated from Minot State College and went on to a long career with GTE in Montana and North Idaho. After retirement, he built his dream home on Lake Coeur d’Alene near Carlin Bay, where he enjoyed hosting his son and triplet grandsons. He enjoyed building things from wood and metal, working on cars and playing the accordion – which he had done since he was a teenager. He died Feb. 25 at age 84.

Donna Faith Glanville graduated from North Central High in 1956, married and started a family with her first husband – who was killed while serving in the Army. She later married Roger Glanville, a union that lasted 60 years; they raised four children together. Born in Baker City, Oregon, she began working at The Crescent department store in 1968, then was an assistant manager at See’s Candies, and then spent a decade as a service dispatcher at Montgomery Ward. She died March 14 at age 82.

Marion Fisher began a career in food service at Larson Air Force Base in Moses Lake in 1965. When the base closed, she moved to the Medical Lake School District, where she became supervisor of the lunch program and won national awards for her work; she enjoyed holding special events, such as outdoor barbecues where teachers served the food and invited students to help plan menus. Born and raised in rural Alberta, she moved with her family to Spokane in 1936, and she worked initially as a bookkeeper at the Spokane Daily Chronicle. She married John Fisher in 1949 and they raised three children. She died March 5 at age 91.

Born in Concordia, Kansas, Father James Dallen was ordained a Catholic priest on the feast of St. Aloysius Gonzaga in 1969 and served in the Abilene parish. He received a doctorate from Catholic University and became well-known for his scholarly work on the subject of the sacrament of penance and for his book, “The Reconciling Community.” He taught at Rosemont College and then Gonzaga University after 1982, where he directed the religious studies department’s graduate pastoral program and served two terms as department chair. Following his retirement, he served as a volunteer chaplain with Hospice of Spokane. He died March 13 at age 76.

Born in Three Forks, Montana, in 1919, Alice Hande came to Washington with her family, who owned and operated an apple orchard near Wenatchee. After high school, she earned a teaching certificate at Holy Names College and taught for two years in Okanogan County, before finding work as a draftswoman for the Army Corps of Engineers, working on the construction of Fairchild Air Force Base and later in the Manhattan Project in the Hanford area. She married George Hande, and they eventually settled in Spokane, where they raised six children. She taught at St. Peter and All Saints Catholic schools for more than 20 years, retiring in 1982. She died March 6 at age 101.

William Haworth started working as a switchman for Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railroad at age 18 in 1968. Thirty-two years later, he retired as a conductor doing the run between Spokane and Whitefish . Born in Chelan, he grew up in Kettle Falls and moved to Spokane after finishing school and stayed in the city the rest of his life. After he retired, he built and flew an experimental airplane, kept honey bees, and planted an orchard with more than 30 fruit trees. He died March 6 at age 70.