Amelia Elizabeth Snell was born in Penewawa, Washington on January 24, 1925 as Amelia Steiger. She passed in Kirkland Washington, March 30 2014 at 10:05 pm. The cause of her passing was a circulatory disease of an uncertain nature, which thankfully caused her no pain. Amy passed to Spirit after a three-week hospital stay that fortunately came with minimal distress.
Amy was the daughter of immigrants who originally came from Germany through Russia (father) and Romania (mother) and then to America. She was the seventh child of a large family of eleven kids. She was an outgoing, energetic and fun-loving spirit. She was easygoing and forgiving in nature, often saying that “people do the best they can” with the circumstances and abilities they were given.
Amy attended the University of Idaho, earned her Bachelor’s in dietetics, and interned at Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1949. In the next few years she lived and adventured in Portland, Seattle, North Hollywood, then Hawaii for six months, and finally Anchorage Alaska where she met her husband to be in Larry D. Snell. They were married in 1957 and had their first boy Gary in 1958. Her second son David came along in 1961. She was very loving, generous and protective towards her children.
In Alaska she did the meal planning for the Alaska Native Hospital and then the Anchorage school district, making sure the kids were getting balanced nutrition. Pretty soon she was traveling to several other places in Alaska to do the same for other school districts.
Here’s a funny story that she liked to laugh at, one that shows her irreverent humor and adventurous life: She often flew in a
single-engine plane to Valdez, flying over the Chugach Mountains, with its sharp horn-shaped peaks and treacherous glaciers. It suddenly occurred to her to ask the pilot “Hey, what happens if we lose engine power?” He replied “Lady, if that ever happens you can kiss your sweet a** goodbye!”
She went from passion to passion, taking up painting and then golf and finally landing on tennis as her favorite activity. In her final years when she had limited mobility, she read widely and enjoyed visits with family most of all. She once joked that the two things she was living for were “you [her sons] and coffee.” She had considerable short-term memory loss in her last years, but she maintained a fairly cheerful attitude and always enjoyed chatting away with visitors.
A memorial service will be held to celebrate Amy’s life at Woodinville Church on April 27, 2014, in the afternoon around 1:30. The church address is 17110 140th Ave NE, Woodinville, WA 98072. Afterwards we will hold a reception at Gary’s home at 10718 Sunrise Drive, Bothell, WA 98011. Larry currently rests in Anchorage Cemetery and we hope to inter Amelia’s cremated ashes with him this summer.
