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The family of James Earl Matthiesen uploaded a photo
Friday, June 1, 2018
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Mike Devlin, posted a condolence
Saturday, December 10, 2005
you are a good friend ''smilie'',, and a good teacher,,ino where your at an i'll see you soon,,
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Nenita Fortuna posted a condolence
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Just to be will all you at this particular moment. I apologyze for not being at the service but I work overnight and couldn't make it but I always remember my dear co-worker at Walmart Jim this gentle gentleman will be remember for ever. Rest in peace and I love you Jim and thanks for all the hugs I received from you.
Sincerely,
Nenita
R
Rosemary Small posted a condolence
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
I have so many happy memories of times spent with the Matthiesen family but the last time I saw Jimmie was at Wal Mart. This memory exemplifies the loving spirit and happy heart typical ofJimmie. He saw me come in the door and came over and said my name and hugged me with great gusto and said how glad he was to see me. Then he laughed and said." Can you believe this - I get paid for talking to people".
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Gena Ayala posted a condolence
Monday, November 28, 2005
I meet Jim recently when I started working at Walmart maybe sounds bad but all the time when I get to the store I gave Jim a hug he love to hug, for me he was an excellent gentleman and I learned to love him every moment I was with my dear co-worker Jim. I remember when I need to get to the store with a lot of empty shopping cars and he help me nobody in that place did or is doing that for me ...just only Jim. I will always remember this awsome person. And I am a widow for many years and I know the feeling when you lost your husband, your friend and your love but now Jim is an Angel that is helping all of us and in a very special way to you Mrs. Matthieson he is there for you he is now a wonderful ANGEL in your new life because is going to be a big difference being without Jim but always remember Him as a loving and wonderful person. Sorry cannot be there at the service but I work overnight shift but my spirit was there with all you. God Bless all of you.
With all my sincere sympathy and respect,
Gena
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His First Son posted a condolence
Sunday, November 27, 2005
REMEMBRANCE
This remembrance of my father’s life is in tribute to the love and respect that he so freely and unconditionally gave, not to just me and my family, but to so many uncountable relatives, friends, neighbors, and acquaintenances, all of whom he truly enjoyed, if not loved. His death will bring, and should bring, many of our shared family and friends together to grieve and mourn for our great loss at this sad time, for we all shared in common, and equally, in his love. All of us, whether present at his funeral service or, by hapless and ill-starred chance, absent from the service because we are separated by the distance of too many miles or the circumstances of our lives, do honor and remember this uncommon, everyday hero. He was a hardworking man who spoke his thoughts in the direct words and with the simple eloquence that marks, with such common dignity, every honest and humble man.
This rare and good man quietly walked on this earth and through all of our lives for seventy-seven years. Every person he had even just briefly known, through all that time of his long life, cannot hear his name – to this day and probably after – without first flashing across their face a fond and wide smile, for each can remember a personal act or sincere word of kindness that my father had done for or said to them.
Many have lived as long as he, but few have lived as well, and fewer still have touched and positively affected, with such gentle strength of character, so many other lives. My father had a trusting kindness that was easily found in his open, warm, and very human heart.
My father, known best by most as Jim, was the eldest son of three children by Harry and Lucy, both of whom came from farming families in Iowa. Having grown up on a several hundred-acre farm at Mary’s Corner in Washington during the hardscrabble Depression years since he was eight, he had remained, always, for as long as he lived, a man rooted in the land he understood so well and loved so much.
As a young teenager during World War Two, he once told me with twinkled eyes and a straight face – he was a natural storyteller – that he had played his part in the war effort, as probably the youngest of the Greatest Generation recently extolled by Tom Brokar, by protecting the strategic hamlet of Mary’s Corner in the middle of the state of Washington from air attack by becoming an Air Auxiliary plane spotter.
At every start of his high school years, he always missed the first month, sometimes even six weeks, of school so he could help his father during harvesting time, according to family legend. When he was pushing two-handed set shots for two points as a starting guard on his high school basketball team, he met, dated, and fell in love with a red-haired, slim, and much younger cheerleader named Ruthie.
From their wedding on the day after his twentieth birthday, through times sweet and times tough, they remained married for the next 58 years.
Within the next six years, two sons and a daughter became the new loves in his life.
Although not a tall man, in the eyes and mind of each of his three children, and probably including Noralee, he had always stood tall. My father grew taller every year that we ourselves grew older, including during the years we settled into the men and woman we are today.
I first learned how to print, then write, my own name – and even read – before ever seeing the inside of a school. My father was my first teacher, beginning in the dark evening hours of the early winter after I had just turned five years old. After my father had worked a ten- or twelve-hour-long hard day of physical labor tending to and coaxing into thriving life the thousands of highbush blueberry plants on the Drew blueberry farm on which our family then lived, I would usually wait for him to return from the fields to park his tractor in the equipment shed near our home. On one such evening, by the dim, small, flickering light in the open bay of a long equipment shed – sometimes lit only by moonlight – he once patiently outlined with a blueberry bush twig twenty-six mysterious and magical figures in the hard-packed dirt, giving each figure a name and a sound for his awe-struck first son to copy and trace himself.
And then, after I had learned the alphabet, in the greatest gift he ever gave me, he later explained and showed me how these scrawled lines on a dirt floor came together to appear as words on a page. Those words later opened doors into new worlds and new ideas for me. As I learned how to create my own words and worlds using the storytelling arts I absorbed from my father, I made my living in my later years by writing such words in ways and combinations that sometimes, when done in the best way, changed the thoughts, feelings, and even lives, of those who read or acted upon them.
I finally, and belatedly, learned in the fourth decade of my life, after too many earlier years of youthful mistakes and thoughtless wrongs that had caused so much emotional pain and suffering for my father and my family, how to live a much more satisfying and rewarding life, as my father had always known how to do, and had done well.
My father deserves the credit for much of the good for which my name has been associated in the latter part of my life. As did my father – whom I consciously and purposely imagined myself to be – with whomever he bumped into or met for the first time, I treated three succeeding mayors and city officials of a major city in the same respectful, interested, and honest way as I did the low-income and homeless people who trusted me as their representative to advocate for their best interests. At every public meeting, every private negotiation, every media interview in which I was involved, I always pretended that I was speaking for or to my father, or that my father was whispering advice in my ear, or that his hand was on my shoulder to guide me toward the best way to help those who needed help the most. I pretended to be my father during that time because I lacked the moral courage within myself to do what my father would have done so naturally, and would have done with no real effort at all.
My father had always been a better man than I, and he was until the day he died.
My greatest regret is that my father never learned that the way he lived his life and treated other people had inspired me, in my own son’s name, to help improve the lives of literally thousands of less fortunate people in my adopted city for the past fifteen years. He never learned that his eldest son, the one he first taught the wonder of words with a blueberry twig he used to carve the letters of the alphabet in the dirt floor of a moonlit dirt farm shed a half century earlier, had later become an award-winning journalist and editor in a major city. He never learned that his formerly errant first-born son had continued writing and helping others, now one person at a time, by working in a well-known law firm in that same city, helping win court cases against legally negligent and irresponsible insurance companies, city agencies, hospitals, businesses, and, even once, against the federal government.
My father’s second son, my brother Randy, was the one child who most closely followed in our father’s footsteps. Randy was able to travel much further down the path of the life that our father had so much wished for himself, and Randy did so with the same high degree of integrity, good common sense, personal sacrifice, subdued determination, and sense of purpose as his father.
Randy also married his first and only love, Marsha, the smartest student in his junior high school class when they first met and first knew they were to share the rest of their lives with one another.
Through the hard, diligent work ethic learned from his father’s daily example, Randy followed his own dream until he made it come true for himself. A veterinarian of uncommon talent and skill, he transferred his childhood love for animals, so much a hallmark of our father’s life, into a professional and lifelong dedication of human service to their better comfort and living longer lives.
My father probably held more respect and more fatherly pride for Randy than for any of his other children, I personally believe, because, if given the opportunity when younger, my father may have chosen that same profession.
Randy is as good a man as was my father and a far better son than I.
His only daughter, Penny, was perhaps more dearly loved by my father than any one of us brothers, in that different, unique way in which only a father can love his only daughter and youngest child. Now older and wiser himself by the time of her birth, he developed a special bond with Penny he never had with his sons, a set of shared moments and feelings and confidences that no one else shall ever know, except, perhaps, another father and only daughter.
They would walk together in sunny rural fields or on shaded urban neighborhood sidewalks, their lives as closely entwined, for that brief time of togetherness, as the arms around each other’s waists, and both would talk and laugh spontaneously from the sheer joy of just being together while they hunted and gathered flowers for her potpourri, or just simply talked.
My father treasured the time spent with Penny because she possessed a quick-silver mind, a radiant, red-haired physical beauty that matched her charming and caring heart, a fiery temperament that refused to give up – right or wrong – when her back was up against a wall, and an artistic sensitivity and awareness that my father most especially loved. Penny expressed her artistry in her acting and in her gathering from the land the dried leaves and blossoms of plants she transformed into a kind of everlasting and breathtaking pieces of practical and natural art.
Her potpourri became those special gifts from her heart, and, when given to my father, were more prized by him more than any other present, because they came from the land he, in reality, revered, and they came from Penny herself, whom he revered even more.
My father once shared some thoughts about his river-deep feelings about Penny with me, almost the last time I ever saw him alive so many years ago. We were standing in a blueberry field at which he himself had worked when we were children, and that I was then managing and hoping, at that time, to buy. At about this same time of year, when the blueberry bushes, standing like sentinels in well-ordered rows, were preparing to survive the winter, their leaves would turn from the deep forest green of the picking season to red, orange, and yellow splashes and streaks before they would fall to the ground to act as a blanket of warmth and source of scarce food for the blueberry bush itself.
My father, after commenting that the bright, red-streaked leaves reminded him of Penny’s own copper-colored hair, paused for a moment, as if thinking of adding some other comment, which he did. My father, turning to look at me directly in the eyes, said, with the authority of a long-considered thought, that Penny had a lot of personal courage – explaining that her hard-fought freedom to be herself at almost any cost and her inherent sense to face and embrace life on her own terms – was what he most loved and admired in her, just as a human being.
I told him we all loved him for that, too, because he had taught us all that lesson, although some of us learned more slowly from him than others. My father answered my response with that smile he had always used when he was giving us kids the benefit of his knowledge, by then saying that “Penny just seems to live that freedom better than you and Randy.”
From time to time, especially when I most needed to, I still think about what he said about the courage to be yourself, in general, and about that specific insight from our father about Penny herself.
Each of us gathered here, physically and in spirit, shall remember my father by all the special moments that we each hold most dear. Each of these precious and lasting moments will be different from what another will remember and each one will stay in our memory for our own private reasons.
These memories are like a personal prism, held tightly and closely to our own self to keep them pristine and fresh. This reflective prism of our individual memories of my father contains the frozen shards of these timeless moments so that we can take them out from time to time to remind ourselves of a good man who had lived a good life. Those precious moments are preserved forever, just like the photographs my father loved to take, collect, and share.
My memories of my father are many, but, as time passes, some have faded. However, the ones that are closest to my own heart have never faded, and never shall, until I, too, shall breathe my last. My father, as will my son, will continue to be in my mind when I do exhale for that last time.
I do remember, especially, when we lived on the Drew blueberry farm, the first time he took me into the woods to chop down my earliest memory of a Christmas tree. Deep snow – about six inches, deep for me at that age – blanketed the ground and draped the evergreen Douglas firs, a postcard scene before I even knew about postcards. This was a no-wind day, the air biting crisply at every breath, the sky cloudy gray, painted with moving sheets of blackness warning of snow. I carried the handsaw, and my father taught me how to carry it safely with the sawteeth down so I would not cut myself if I fell.
We crossed the country road near the small bridge over the Black River bordering the blueberry farm and went behind a log cabin near the road, the place where Old Ben, a hermit-like, bearded man whom only my father seemed to understand, quietly lived. Old Ben hardly ever left the cabin. I remember something about other people calling him “Crazy Ben”. After knocking on his door, he greeted my father with a smile and a few words, simply nodding when my father asked his permission to cut a Christmas tree behind his cabin.
We did not go far into the woods. But I saw some animal tracks, and my father gave me my first lesson in woodcraft. We followed the tracks of what I remember he telling me were those of a rabbit, which led us to a copse of smallish trees in a larger clearing, watched over by monumental firs groaning with the heavy, wet snow on their branches. He explained what to look for in a Christmas tree and let me pick one out. I watched as he used the saw to cut down the tree, telling me to closely watch him how he did this, for next year, I would be cutting down our Christmas tree. He especially made certain that the best tree to cut was not the most perfect one for our home, but the one that would help the remaining trees grow even healthier.
This was the first time I began to understand the land, and how to respect what grew on and lived in the woods, and how to keep the woods living, healthy, and full of life. This was my first lesson in forest ecology.
When I asked my father why Old Ben was also called “Crazy Ben”, as we walked down the long driveway to our home on the Drew blueberry farm, my father dragging the freshly-cut Christmas tree, the waft of cut wood tingling the air as soft, silent snowflakes drifted downward, he simply said, with a slight smile, “Sometimes, just because some people are different, they are called crazy. But we always just call him Old Ben, not Crazy Ben, because he is old. Not sure about crazy. But he is, for sure, old.”
I remember when, in the following year, I did cut down our Christmas tree, but my father still carried it out. That same year, I have this clear memory of my first and only sleigh ride in a one-horse-drawn sleigh that was driven by Richard Drew – Mrs. Drew’s son, who, a generation later, became president of the North American Blueberry Association – my brother and I with my father and mother, and, I believe, the elderly Mrs. Drew with us as well, all of us bundled up in heavy coats and blankets, going down that same country road, frozen slick with ice and not traveled by any cars, going across the Black River bridge in what seemed to be the middle of a snowstorm, or else the flurry of snow that came from the horse’s hooves.
I remember when my father held my sister, Penny, in his arms, as I recall, for what he said was the first time since my mother came home from the hospital. I know, with that certain clarity of truth, that he picked her up so naturally, so lovingly, and began to gently sway his body, crooning some now long forgotten melody, then moving his feet around the living room as he danced with his daughter for the first time.
I realized that my father had done this before, and, since I was the first born, had most probably done the same thing with me. I remember feeling warm and contentedly happy.
I think that was the time, when I was about six, that I first saw my father show, what I later learned was called, the beauty of the human spirit.
I remember when my father taught me how to ride my first bicycle and warned me not to ride it down the steep grade of the gravel-covered road that dead-ended at our new home in which we lived after leaving Drew’s blueberry farm. I still carry that scar on my knee after losing control of my bicycle and skidding and then tumbling off the bicycle, bleeding from my knee through my jeans so much that my shoes squeaked from the pooled blood that had collected in them.
I learned that sometimes maybe I should listen to my father, because he may have my best interests at heart.
I sometimes, too many times, forgot that lesson, to my later regret.
I remember, when we lived in the house on Steamboat Island Road that later burned down due to faulty electrical wiring, that my father was such a fine hunter that he always, always, got his first deer on the first day of hunting season. His local reputation became so well known, that, after his deer was taken, he would go back into the woods with a neighbor who was unsuccessful in their hunting and actually get another deer with their tag. But the memory I have is not of his prowess as a hunter, but of his charity and his spirit in which he helped feed his family and another’s.
Hunting was not about trophy deer racks or the number of deer bagged. His feeling was that he was feeding his family and that of another man who just was not as knowledgeable about how to hunt for food. Every animal life he took was done with respect for the life force that was forever silenced. When he taught me to hunt, he told me never to shoot unless it was a certain and sure kill. And I stopped hunting when one year I shot a deer and could not find it, despite following a blood trail for three hours.
At one point, long after I stopped even bow hunting, Penny convinced my father that he no longer needed to hunt for food, and that his hunting was becoming more of a sport than a necessity. My dad agreed and, later in his life, found far much more pleasure in simply shooting photographs of the wildlife he so easily found.
His ability to find and see wild animals was absolutely and eerily uncanny. I have so many memories of being with him, or having other hunters or just friends with him, either on foot or in a vehicle, when he would suddenly stop and whisper that a deer, a pheasant, a grouse, an eagle, or whatever animal he could see was behind this tree or under that bush or had just topped that hill. Every time, whomever was with him would strain their eyes, keeping still, frantically and unsuccessfully searching the woods or field or stream bank, still seeing nothing, until he slowly directed our eyes with quiet words and silent motions to where the animal had hidden itself. His knowledge of woodcraft, how to survive in the wild, and how to best travel over and through the countryside was surpassed by only a few, and they were normally professional hunters, while he was just an amateur, in his opinion.
Taking walks in the country with my father after his hunting years was an education in life itself.
When he took up photography, especially those of wildlife and natural scenes, that skill in approaching the animal or getting the best possible view was exciting to watch, because he could, and would, get closer than most people before taking his photograph, simply because he was attuned to the land and its wildlife that he could so with practiced ease.
Those outdoor skills that he did teach me were some of the most significant and telling insights into his mind and feelings as an aware and human being that I have ever encountered. When I most needed to use those woodcraft and hunting skills at those few times in my life when I needed to do so, they proved invaluable. My father had left me a rich part of his heritage, as I am certain to this day that I can survive in any natural element or environment in which I find myself, however intimidating it may seem to a city person at first glance.
Those outdoor and woodcraft skills included plants as well. A superb gardener, he just had that ability to know how to keep life growing and thriving, whether it be a fruit tree, a garden vegetable, a house plant, a field crop, or a tray of herbs on a window sill.
I remember when, for a number of successive Christmas’, that he had built elaborate and scaled panoramic Christmas scenes, each one different from the previous one, outside our largest house window. Collecting small toy buildings, figures, animals, and other objects throughout the year, he would create a Currier and Ives-like snow countryside on the a piece of plywood outside of the window. Some years he had flowing water ingeniously integrated into these peaceful vistas and all of them were well-lit from the usually inside our home. Our holiday guests were simply amazed at what he could create with just his hands, his creative and active imagination, and his practical building skills.
I had always thought that he had constructed these elaborate scenes, built after he had left the farming life and living in the country, because he so missed the land he so loved.
Most of all, I remember how any animal, completely and without reservation, totally trusted my father. They could immediately sense that my father was their human friend and protector. His unique ability to understand how animals thought or saw or felt made him a “whisperer” decades before such a term was made popular when applied to horses. His skill and natural talent was greater, because he was able to calmly work with any type of animal – dogs, cats, chipmunks, rabbits, chickens, horses, calves, dairy and beef cattle, even pigs. He did not actually train animals, because he would, instead, just convince them, somehow and mysteriously, that doing this or doing that was just a good idea, and wisely persuaded the animal in question that it wanted to this or that, anyway.
Our Jim, our father, our grandfather, our great-grandfather, our friend still lives
within us, never to be forgotten, still making us smile when a smile is most needed, still guiding us when we are lost, still reminding us how life should be lived, still showing us how to love each other and our animal companions, all of whom so enrich our lives.
You did good, Dad.
P
Penelope A. Matthiesen posted a condolence
Saturday, November 26, 2005
My earliest memories of my father when I was four. We had a horrible house fire. My baby pictures were destroyed. My father hated that. My father tried to teach me to chop wood. I was not any good at that. He then tried to teach me to milk Greycloud, our cow. I was not good at that either. He told me it was time to learn. It was time now. But, he let me climb the willow tree. He let me plant flowers. I was good at that. He taught me when I fell off Traveler, our horse in my white jeans into a pile of manure to get back on until I learned how to do it and do it right. He never wanted me to give up. When I knocked out Danny Hatcher's two front teeth with a baseball he bragged to his friends, and pretended to spank me in the back yard. Years later, I criticized him and his hunting buddies for 'catching' a 'small deer' he decided to take up hunting with a bow and an arrow. Unfortunately, he also decided that taking pictures of a herd of elk was much better than shooting them. His buddies were not pleased. When I was a Brownie and then graduated to become a Girl Scout, I got ill. My faithful brother Randy substituted for me and I won a prize. When the 1964 earthquake hit Olympia, Washington my Dad had all of the family huddled in his car in the parking lot of the Georgia Pacific. We were safe; Dad's family safety was all that was ever important. As a teenager in the 1970's, I was rebellious and onery. I got caught smoking; again spanking was feigned. My father built a 'dream house' for my mother and proceeded to inform me I was fat. I cried, I lost weight, I gained, I lost. I am proud to say I have been thin for 25 years. As an adult, he helped me pick flowers for my potpourri business. We sometimes did not pick the most legal locations. He took me to the wild lavender fields in Lacey and helped me plant bushes in my rented back yard. When men broke my hearts, they were jerks. When I lost jobs, there were always better jobs. He taught me optimism. He talked to me about puberty, he told me to wear jeans, not frilly dresses. He gave me confidence when I had none. He gave his brother Duffy a job when he had none. He gave me work when I had none. He sent me beautiful pictures of Lady Di; he wrote me letters. He hated to write letters. He taught me patience; not one of my virtures. He told me to stop smoking. I have not. Most of the damage I do to myself is my doing; not anyone elses. I do not have a family of my own, but if I did my father was the best there was. I hope he did not suffer. I offer condolences do the Matthiesen;s; it is not returned. I love you Dad. May I carry your memories in your beautiful photos. You lived a full life. You went to Australia. You traveled across country in an RV. You are my John Wayne. You always will be. I love you DADDY.
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Steve & Patti Campbell Cook posted a condolence
Friday, November 25, 2005
Ruth and family-
We were very sorry to hear of Jimmy's passing. It always so difficult to lose a loved one. We send our love and sympathy to you all.
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penelope ann matthiesen posted a condolence
Friday, November 25, 2005
My father was the most wonderful, caring individual I have ever had the opportunity to know. He taught me how to love people no matter how messed up they are and were. He taught me to appreciate flowers, wildlife and photos. I am extremely saddened by his passing. While I was not invited to the funeral by my mother, I cannot begin to express the many memories I have with him. We picked wild lavender in fields, he would double wrap xmas presents so I had a surprise to open. He had a wicked sense of humor and we shared many special times and events together. He had many friends, and always remembered people's names, and events in their lives wherever he worked. He was called "Smiley" at Georgia Pacific. He took every job he had seriously. His work ethic was impeccable. While I am his only daughter, I loved him more than any man I have ever met. I try to look for characteristics in men that are like him. But that is an impossible task because he was one in a million. I remember his cowboy hat, his bolo ties, and his fondness for collecting coins. He could grow anything, except when his daughter put in a bunch of gladiola bulbs in the ground upside down. We loved blueberries and boy did he love his ice cream. The few letters he wrote me I will cherish forever. I loved you Dad, and I hope you are with Lucy and Harry. All my love, Penelope Ann Matthiesen
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Darrell & Lori Wallace posted a condolence
Thursday, November 24, 2005
We were saddened to hear of Jim's passing. Our heartfelt condolences to Ruthie, Noralee, and all the family.
T
Terri Henderson posted a condolence
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
My day would always start out the best when I would see Jim's smiling face coming through the door at Wal-Mart. He would have the kindest things to say and always had a way of cheering me up when I was feeling down. It's not the same anymore walking in the door and knowing you won't be there. But I can't help not to smile when I see that singing reindeer sitting there... and remembering all the times we laughed and danced with him together. God Bless you Jim and all of your family. You will be truly missed and never forgotten.
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