Adelaide Alma Jones Adams passed into her eternal life on April 27, 2018, with her children at her side. Born in Yakima on September 27, 1923, to Bessie (Mersereau) and Eldon Jones, Addie was the sixth of nine brothers and sisters who grew up in Harrah. At fourteen years, her father died suddenly, and she dropped out of high school for a year to help support her family by working in their café, the Amble Inn in Harrah. The family always joked, she recalled, that people may have ambled in, but they always waddled out. The following year, she returned to school, graduating from Wapato High in 1942.
While still in High School, she met her future husband, Harlow Paul Adams, Sr. They dated just a few times before Harlow’s Army unit was deployed to the South Pacific during World War II, where he remained in active service for the next 29 months. During that time, they exchanged many heartfelt letters that sometimes took months to arrive. When writing back to him, she never knew for certain whether he was still alive.
Shortly after Harlow’s safe return in 1944 they married in San Luis Obispo. In 1945, they returned to Yakima where Harlow worked for the Standard Oil Company, opening his own Chevron dealership in 1955. Addie provided administrative support for the business while staying home to raise their three children. Addie and Harlow were founding members of the Englewood Christian Church which they attended with friends and family for many years. She was a deaconess and frequently volunteered to prepare food for the congregation during church observances, weddings and funerals.
Her single-minded goal was to see her children graduate from college. When her youngest was four, she returned to work to help support her sons in attending college. The Yakima Valley School District hired her, initially, as a part-time school cook. They quickly promoted her to a food service manager position, first at Davis High and later at Eisenhower, where she oversaw the preparation of 1800 meals per day- in the days when the meals were made from scratch, including homemade breads, casseroles and desserts. She served in that position for more than ten years. Both sons graduated from WSU, while her daughter graduated from the UW.
Addie was a remarkable cook, baker, homemaker, gardener (flowers, vegetables and fruit), hostess, fisherwoman, pinochle player, camper, wife, mother and grandmother. She loved preparing holiday meals for family gatherings, hosting card parties and waking up to fraternity brothers camped out in the backyard and living room. She knew that many of those young men grew up in bigger and fancier houses, but she took pride in knowing that they felt at home in her modest home.
Harlow was a man with many hobbies and she supported him in pursuing those interests, first as a family and later as a couple: photography, boating, water skiing, fishing, genealogy, guitar playing and fiddling, and camp-outs with the Old-Time Fiddlers. In 1984, after retirement, they traveled around the U.S. for nearly a year, visiting friends, relatives and historical monuments.
Addie was preceded in death by Harlow (2016), her parents and siblings, Ruth, George, Bud, and Bill Jones, and Dulcie Eagle, Pat Syverson, and Peggy Harris. She is survived by her sister, Pearle, her children, Harlow Paul, Jr., Scott and Susan Adams, daughter-in-law, Janet, six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
A Funeral Service will be held on Friday, June 1, 2018 at 10:00 a.m. at Rainier Memorial Center with burial to follow at Terrace Heights Memorial Park.
To offer a condolence or share a memory of Adelaide, please visit www.keithandkeith.com
