Obituary of Marjorie Lee Schroder Engler

Marjorie Lee Schroder Engler Our beautiful Mom left us 24 November 2011 to join our Dad, Bill Schroder, and other loved ones who have gone before. Mom was born 15 March 1919 in Seattle. Left motherless within a week of her birth, Mom was adopted by her mother’s aunt and uncle, Petra and I.C. Lee. She attended Madrona Elementary School and Garfield High School in Seattle, skipping a couple of grades and graduating early. She met our Dad when she was 16, and they married one month after her 20th birthday. Mom was a talented artist and did amazing pet portraits in charcoal and pastels. She loved to ride bikes, watch humming birds, wrestle with crosswords, and make pickles, pies and cookies. She was very fond of cats, especially Maine Coon cats of which we had several over the years. When she was a girl, she played baseball and in her later years was a Mariners fan. She taught herself to knit and made wonderful Nordic sweaters, which she gave to family members and friends. After Dad died in 1970, she worked at Seattle University. She married Ernie Engler in 1976 and they moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where they ran a contractors licensing school and consulting company. After Ernie died in 1993, she settled in Tumwater. At the time of her death, she was living at Olympics West Retirement Center where the staff and Providence Hospice nurses have been unfailingly kind and compassionate. Mom is survived by her two children, Steven Schroder (Kate) of Tumwater, and Laurie McKay of Seattle; two step-daughters, Barbara (Vernon) Dudley of South Bend, Indiana, and Donna (Paul) Barulich, San Mateo, California; five grandchildren, Heather Laurence (Jeff) of Seattle, Cavendish McKay (Sarah) of Marietta, Ohio, Beren McKay (Hillary) of Seattle, Heidi Schroder of Tumwater, Kjell Schroder of Austin, Texas; three step-grandchildren, Sara and Michael Barulich and Christine Dudley; and seven great-grandchildren, Iain and Axel Laurence of Seattle, and Callister, Morgan, Minerva, Schroder and Synneve McKay of Marietta, Ohio. Mom is also survived by her sister, Lorraine Becker (Bob); niece, Susan Hoeflein (Charles); nephew, Bob Becker; and her dearest friend for 88 years, Emily Wright of Mercer Island. We love you Mom and we will miss your smile, wit, intelligence, humor and strong determination (not to mention your pies and cookies), but we know there are others welcoming you home who have missed you too. Dad must be very happy indeed to have you back with him. Please leave memories or condolences for the family in the Guestbook below.