Lorna Rae Greeley

Lorna Rae Snodderly was born in Pomeroy, Washington on April 16, 1928 to Edward William and Clara Della (Lynch) Snodderly. She attended a one-room schoolhouse through 8th grade. Because she was the only student in her grade, the teacher gave her piano lessons and had her practice while the teacher taught the other students their lessons. She also played piano each Sunday for church services. As children we loved hearing her play from the hymn books, we could see how much she enjoyed it.

After 8th grade she went to Pomeroy High School where she played trumpet in the school band. She graduated from high school in 1946 and went on to attend Northwest Bible College in Seattle with her best friends Jean Young and Bernadine Greeley.

Oldest of one sister and five brothers, she spent many happy times with her siblings and lots of cousins during the depression. She shared many memories of her grandmother Charlotte Lynch, who would take them camping and help out with harvest season.

In 1947, her family moved to Enterprise, Oregon. Soon after her two best friends became her sisters-in-law, when she married Eugene Greeley and Jean married Everett Greeley, Bernadine's brothers.

In 1950, Eugene moved his family to Seattle as well as several areas of Puget Sound, where the family expanded to eight children. In the late sixties, they lived on a remote island in Southeast Alaska, where Lorna had to order groceries and supplies by mail or radio which would then be delivered by plane or the weekly mail boat.

In the seventies, she moved to Portland with the youngest three children, working for the Federal government. Several years before retiring, she moved to Aurora, Oregon to be near her siblings. She retired in 1993 and enjoyed her many hobbies: knitting, sewing, hand quilting, gardening, reading and perusing thrift stores for a quilt top to hand quilt.

She love to knit and made knitted Christmas stockings for all eight children, their spouses and all her grandchildren. She knitted doll clothes, and made many knit hats for the "preemie" babies in the hospital, as well as socks and gloves for herself. As a young mother she sewed dresses for her daughters. Later she sewed dolls and their clothes.

She loved to try new plants and flowers to grow each year in the yard of her home in Aurora. She always had flowers growing wherever she lived.

With her daughter Tina she traveled to Israel, New York, Connecticut, Maine, Montreal and to London twice. She loved to see Vermont in the Fall with the Feldman family.

Lorna was devoted to her eight children: Virginia (Don) Hoffman, Caron (Chuck) Keyser, Norma (George) Reece, James (Julie) Greeley, Timothy Greeley, Rebecca (Jim Wood) Greeley, Beverly "Tina" (Barry) Feldman and E. Sherman (Sarah) Greeley. She is survived by 16 grandchildren, 25 great grandchildren; sister Diane Sweek, brothers Timothy and Terry. She was loved by many nieces and nephews and many friends of her children.

We will miss her wisdom and kind advice, her example of strength to take on any challenge life brought her way and her undying devotion to her family.

She was truly our queen.