Marguerite Karin Anderson

Marguerite was born July 23, 1917, in Seattle to Thomas and Edith Lee. Her youth was spent in High Point and Issaquah living with her father who was a mill worker and logger in both of those communities. She graduated from Issaquah High School in 1935.

After high school, she attended a business college in Seattle. She learned skills that enabled her to work in various secretarial jobs in the Seattle area.

At the age of 24 she felt called to go to Alaska to serve in a children’s home in Juneau. On arrival, she learned of a very ill baby boy that was left at the hospital. The child was not expected to live, and Marguerite decided she should be the one to bring that child back to health. She petitioned the court to adopt the baby. In those days it was unheard of for a single woman to adopt a child, but the court allowed it as the prospects for the child were otherwise dismal, at best. She nursed him back to health and took him with her when she returned to Issaquah in 1943. This story speaks volumes about Marguerite’s empathy and will. She decided what she wanted to do, and there was no stopping her.

While in Alaska war broke out. She needed money to start her own children’s home, so she landed a job working as a secretary for General Simon Bolivar Buckner, in charge of the military operation in Alaska.

She married Arnold Olaf Anderson of Tacoma on November 15, 1943. They settled on property owned by Marguerite’s father, Thomas Lee, on Issaquah Creek. They raised four children in Issaquah until 1962 when the family moved to Auburn to be closer to Auburn Adventist Academy, where the couple desired schooling for their children, and from which all four graduated.

Her longest employment tenure was with the Boeing Company where she worked as a secretary and accountant. She retired from Boeing in 1984 after 17 years with the company. She was particularly fond of her time on the Lunar Rover program. The Rover was sent to the moon and traveled its surface in 1971.

After retirement she turned her attentions to community service and mission trips. She was director of the Auburn Community Service Center for many years (a ministry of the Auburn Seventh-Day Adventist Church). She traveled to 67 countries, mostly mission trips with her church senior group known as “SAGE.” On those trips she helped the team build homes, schools and churches on four continents.

She was active in the Sons of Norway for many decades, and was awarded “Norwegian of the Year” in 1997 by the Vesterdalen Lodge of Auburn. She was skilled in the making of lefse (a Norwegian flatbread).

She was preceded in death by her husband of 62 years, Arnold, who died in 2005. She was also preceded in death by her adopted son, David.

Survivors include loving children Karen Weismiller of Covington, Thomas and Christina Anderson of Issaquah, and Daniel and Wendy Anderson of Fairbanks, Alaska; ten grandchildren; fifteen great-grandchildren; and one great-great-grandchild.

A celebration of Marguerite’s life will be held on September 20 at 2:00 PM at the Auburn Seventh-day Adventist Church. Private interment will be held at Mountain View Cemetery of Auburn.