On March 26, 2020, at the age of 97, Lois Mae Cavanaugh passed away at the Horizon View Adult Family Home in Bellevue, WA. Her final resting place will be at Sunset Hills Cemetery in Bellevue, WA with her husband William Cavanaugh. No funeral services will be held due to the Coronavirus. Her Celebration of Life will be held at a future date.
Lois was born on July 23, 1922, to Rueben and Ella Link in Deer Creek, MN. She was the fourth of five siblings and is survived by her youngest sister Lucille Schroder age 92. Lois graduated from Deer Creek High School in 1940. Her class was the first to be taught to use the typewriter, which she said helped in finding jobs early in her career. She eventually moved to Washington DC and worked for the Pentagon during World War II. After the war, she married George Flynn and had two children, Michael (1948) and Roberta “Bobbi” (1949). They were divorced soon after. She married Orville DeAtley in 1952 and moved with her children to Germany where Orville was stationed with the US Army. While in Germany, the family traveled to Austria, Switzerland, Venice Italy, and France. After returning from Germany in 1956, the family moved to Seattle, WA. In 1964, she had a daughter, Debra. Orville died of lung cancer in 1968. In 1978, Lois met and married William Cavanaugh and they lived on Mercer Island. William passed away in 1988, and Lois continued to live on Mercer Island until 2018. Lois is survived by her three children, five grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
Lois’s passions included reading, puzzles, traveling and investing. She had a map of the world on her wall with pins for each place she visited. The map looked like a pincushion. She belonged to an investment club and participated in the Bellevue Women’s Club. After she retired in 1984, she volunteered at the Mercer Island Thrift store. She also said about retirement, that she made more money after she retired than when she was working.
She was also an excellent baker. Her specialties included German Chocolate Cake, Black Forest Cake, Cinnamon Pecan Rolls and her mother’s moist, delicious Bluhm Banana Bread Recipe which became a family tradition still made today by her children and grandchildren. She bragged that she could go through 10 lbs. of flour in a weekend.
Lois - We love you, will miss you and treasure the memories of the laugher and good times spent together. Because of you, our lives were much richer. Any successes we enjoyed were because of you.
Donations of remembrance can be made to the
Washington Talking Book and Braille Library - https://www.wtbbl.org/
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