Spokane was a forever home to the vibrant and creative woman who died in the Upriver fire. It’s why she didn’t want to leave it

Scott Haugen has seen the many Facebook comments critical of his mother for refusing to evacuate during a June wildfire, ultimately killing her and razing her Northwood home.

“They didn’t know her,” Scott Haugen said. “Her home was her everything. She made a choice to stay, and that was her choice.”

That last hour of Marilyn Haugen’s life doesn’t define all her 83 years, he said. Marilyn was a strong woman, one who hunted deer and moose with her husband, Dennis, while living in remote Alaska. She provided for her son when Dennis was deployed to the Philippines. And when she and Dennis moved to Spokane for a change of scenery, she poured her energy into savoring all the meaningful holidays and vacations with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The fast-moving Upriver fire destroyed parts of Beacon Hill and quickly spread into the Northwood neighborhood on June 16, leveling 14 homes. Marilyn was the only reported death.

“The Sunday before, (Marilyn and Dennis) were sitting out on the back deck as the stars were twinkling, talking about how blessed they were to have landed there and how much they loved being there,” Scott said. “That was just 48 hours before she lost her life.”

The couple met at a Colorado high school in the 1950s – Dennis took 16-year-old Marilyn to a carhop, bought her a Coke, and she fell in love with his eyes. The rest was history. They wed in November 1960 during the heaviest snowstorm in Denver’s history, The Spokesman-Review reported in 2021.

The two had Scott in 1961, though Dennis was deployed to fight in the Vietnam War and met his son more than a year after he was born. In 1962, the Navy sent the couple to Alaska, where they stayed for two more decades and had two more children.

Marilyn was a leader, Scott remembered, and she was unafraid of adventure. The family lived 100 miles from the Arctic Circle, extremely remote, so they would go months or years without making a trip to a store. She and Dennis would hunt and catch any food themselves, he said.

“She was a moose hunter. She went on moose hunts – moose and deer. In a picture of her and my dad hunting, there’s her, leaning across the hood of a pickup with a rifle in her hand,” Scott said. “But she drew the line at bear. She wasn’t in on that.”

Scott remembers his mother always had some sort of project for her three children, usually a woodworking project. The kids would craft a sort of paddleboat, take it to the park and race the boats in water.

“She made fun happen,” Scott said. “She was creative, energetic and fun. Her telephone voice, you’d think you were talking to a 23-year-old. Her laugh was just very young and vibrant.”

When the couple moved to Spokane in 1996, they wanted a place to stay for the rest of their lives. And they wanted a place with four seasons.

Their back deck was a place the couple spent many nights. They enjoyed the peace and quiet in remote Alaska, and their deck in Spokane was a place of solace because they could look out in the distance and didn’t have to see the roof of any other house, Scott said.

Marilyn filled the home with photos and spent copious hours crafting scrapbooks of all her families’ memories. She also loved her dance club, the “Model T Squares,” and found her creative side in cooking and hosting.

Though Dennis is Italian and homemade pasta and wine flowed freely inside the house growing up, Marilyn was Swedish – “the opposite sort of palate. White gravy, flour, salt and pepper,” Scott said. But she could make any dish feel like home.

“She could look in the fridge, pull out a bunch of stuff and make something out of it without a recipe,” he added. “It would be amazing.”

As Marilyn grew older, her love for her family grew in size with more grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She would bring little gifts, games or projects in her suitcase to surprise them during holidays or trips to Mexico, just like she had done with her own children. She spent hours putting together cards for her family and printing out photos to use in the scrapbooks.

When Marilyn’s great-grandchildren learned of her death, they ran to mourn over the pile of cards they had saved from her over the years, her son said. One scrapbook, a story of her life, was still sitting on the dining room table when the house burned to the ground.

“It’s one of my biggest losses, all of those pictures,” Scott said. “If you have to evacuate … Get your pictures.”

The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office said they repeatedly went back to the Haugen home at 7728 E. Columbia Court, knocking on the door and warning anyone left inside to leave immediately. They heard no response, and quickly left before the fire overtook the street, the sheriff’s office said in a news release last month.

Dennis called Scott as he watched the fire overtake the hill their home rested on. Dennis tried to get her to leave their home, Scott said, but she wouldn’t.

In their 65 years of marriage, and especially during the war, there were many times Marilyn and Dennis didn’t know if they would see each other again. But the couple always had a deep, respectful understanding of one another, Scott said.

“He was watching it in real time, and I was on the phone with him,” Scott said. “He didn’t want to hurt her. He wasn’t going to force her. She said she wasn’t going.

“She told my dad she is going to fight the fire with the garden hose, and if she was able to save the house, that would be a win. But if it didn’t work out, her faith and trust in the Lord, her beliefs in eternal life, she would be with her savior. And that was also a win.”

It’s not how his mother died that Scott will carry for the rest of his life. It’s her memory.

“She was an amazing person. Her kids and grandkids loved her … Her vibrancy and youthfulness and joy of life and love for people, I’ll miss her,” Scott Haugen said. “I’ll miss her laughter.”