David Alexander Cameron

March 13, 1941 – Feb. 4, 2025

David Alexander Cameron, Ph.D., passed away in peace at his home in Index, WA on Feb. 4, 2025. He was a scholar and a gentleman, a teacher, a woodsman, a leader in Snohomish County’s historical community, a grower of plants and minds.

Born March 13, 1941, his youth was filled with hard work and mountain adventures. He worked at Brown’s Printing in Everett after school and on weekends doing the “printer’s devil” chores and delivering publications all over town. Rising through the ranks of Boy Scouts he became an Eagle Scout in the Order of the Arrow in 1958.

A 1959 graduate of Everett High, he went on to receive his Bachelor’s degree from Pacific Lutheran University in 1963. He then married his first wife, Nancy, and traveled to the University of Pennsylvania for his Master’s degree in history. That resulted in a thirty-year career as a teacher at Cascade High School, often focusing on Challenge classes and developing new curriculum. In 1986 Columbia Pacific University awarded his degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Antioch University, Western Washington University and Everett Community College benefitted from his occasional week-long summer classes.

Summers during the 1970s to ‘80s were spent primarily working for the U.S. Forest Service not only fighting fires but developing the first Mountain Loop Highway interpretive signs. Interest in the area led him to create the Monte Cristo Preservation Association (MCPA) when the old mining town of Monte Cristo was hit by vandalism and flooding in the early 1980s. Summer work also included running The Cameron Farm on five acres, with his wife in Snohomish.

In 1987 he was appointed Chairman of Snohomish County’s Washington State Centennial Committee, a volunteer position that required monthly meetings in every part of the county to plan for a year-long celebration in 1989. Alone by then he lived at the Forest Service’s Verlot Public Service Center for several years while planting an experimental tree nursery. He married Louise Lindgren on the last day of the Centennial, Dec. 31,1989 at his cabin in Monte Cristo. They had snowshoed into that remote location and celebrated with a handful of friends there.

In the early 1990s, Cameron was deeply involved in leading the Clan Cameron of the Pacific Northwest, a group he created in 1988 after finding Camerons unrepresented at the Highland Games of Enumclaw. He retired from Cascade High School teaching in 1994 but became busier than ever with summer history classes for universities, MCPA, growing a large garden and small orchard, and from 1995 to 2005 writing Snohomish County: An Illustrated History with four other distinguished county historians. Volunteer work for the Index-Pickett Museum was ongoing from its creation until his death.

Emergency management was high on his list of priorities from his scouting days through teaching and even after retirement when he became Emergency Management Coordinator for the Town of Index for many years. He had several packs all ready to go at a moment’s notice and helped others to prepare theirs as well.

Another town service was helping to start the Community Garden. He drew upon his knowledge gleaned from getting a certificate in horticulture from the University of Guelph in Canada and shared boxes of seeds with other gardeners which he received as a grant from Seed Savers, a group whose mission is to save heirloom seed varieties.

Honors, in addition to scholastic, were receipt of the City of Everett’s Brown Award in 2019, a recognition of outstanding effort in preserving the city’s history, and in October 2024, the League of Snohomish County Heritage Organizations’ Lifetime Service Award.

He loved long walks, reading, gardening, and any food with raisins. He taught his children and grandchildren to appreciate nature, other cultures, and a good book with a cup of tea.

Cameron leaves Louise, his wife of 35 years, daughter Laura (Roland), son Pete (Charlene), grandchildren Eleanor and Alfons, niece Elizabeth and her son Alexander, and uncountable friends that he made during his long and productive life. A celebration of that life was held at the Bush House Inn on Saturday, May 17.

Reflections from Son Pete;

How do you summarize a man’s life in just a few minutes? You can’t – especially when a man can proudly look back on his long, successful journey and smile – like my father could.

Dad was a remarkable man in a lot of ways – intellectually brilliant but sensitive, a hard worker who never shied away from a challenge, but also quick witted and blessed with a dry sense of humor - that I inherited – our yearly exchange of really bad birthday cards filled with one-liners, puns, and Bad Dad jokes lead to some real groans and facepalms over the years.

As I started to prepare for today, I started thinking of some of the words I would use to describe my father – caring, compassionate, rational, a volunteer, logical, accepting of everyone, a great listener, teacher, strict but fair, a preservationist, a mentor, a community resource, an author, dependable, a naturalist, a good friend to so many, and a devoted family man who deeply loved those closest to him.

Dad was well versed and extremely knowledgeable in so many areas - not only in the historical/philosophical/doctoral sense, but just the most random, Trival-Pursuit type of odd-ball facts that nowadays would take you a half-hour Google search to find. All those years of research and studies filled his head with so many miscellaneous facts and tidbits about history and cultures, about inventions and milestones, and he would pull up one and drop it in the middle of a conversation like tossing a rock into a pond, then he’d sit back and watch us deal with the ripples with that sly smirk on his face…wow, do I miss that.

But he had an immense amount of practical knowledge too, much of which came from his formative years in the Scouts - from growing fruits & vegetables to tracking weather patterns, from raising chickens and beekeeping, from grafting apple trees to being the master at cutting firewood – oh, so much firewood. As soon as I was old enough to join him, we made countless trips to the mountains to drop trees and load up the truck to bring home & split, stack, and cover. Now I don’t know who did it, but one day someone told him there’s a much faster and easier way to do it – and low and behold, one morning a fully loaded logging truck showed up at the farm – can you guess what I did that summer?

Dad’s love of the outdoors and especially being in the mountains, being close to nature, was his happy place – his summers spent working for the Forest Service gave him the chance to really be in his element – maintaining trails and campgrounds, climbing up to lookouts and working the fire seasons kept him outside and in great shape, but he also enjoyed stopping and talking with anyone who would listen, and educate them about where they were, and what life was like for those who made a living in the woods and in the mines so many years before.

When we were kids, purchasing a cabin at Monte Cristo fulfilled another one of his goals, by allowing him a place to not only get some respite from the craziness of the world, but to have his family with him as well. Spending our childhood out roaming the trails, playing in the creeks, crawling over abandoned buildings, tailing piles, and old rusty equipment was a real gift, as was listening to him get up early in the morning to start the wood stove and make us flapjacks – there’s something about a cabin full of wood smoke that adds a certain flavor…

So, I’m not going to stand up here and bore you with tons of stories, but there are a couple of memories of my father that I think showed me the kind of man he was:

Despite coming from a family of fishermen & hunters, and given his passion for the outdoors, Dad didn’t do either one. When I was a kid I asked him why he never took me hunting or fishing like my friends’ dads, he said he only went hunting once, and he’d never do it again.

I asked him what happened, and he said when he was young his dad (who we all called Pop) took him duck hunting up at a small shack he had on the Skagit river, and they came across a couple of mallards paddling in the water. Pop told him to shoot the drake, & he did – when Dad went to go pick up the bird he saw that he had blown the entire top of its head clean off from the beak on up. Pop was proud, but Dad said he felt sick inside, and sorry for the bird - and really sad that the other one flew off without her mate. So he told Pop that that was enough, and that he was done. And he was.

Dad taught us at a young age to work hard, be practical, and “Save your money!” When I’d ask him if I could get a new bike, or the latest toy or BB gun, the reply was always – “Save your money!”

And it worked, because eventually I quit asking – or would go ask Mom – and she would say – “Go ask your father”.

In 1993 while I was working full time at a funeral home putting myself through mortuary college, my car died. School was 40 miles away, and if I couldn’t drive, I’d have to drop out of school and not be able to get my degree or my funeral director’s license. Problem was like most college kids I was flat broke, all my money went to tuition & gas, and my one credit card was maxed out. There was an older gentleman who owned the Chevron station down the street where we’d get all our fuel, and he had an old Honda Prelude sitting there with a For Sale sign on it for $1,400. I talked him down to $1,200, and called both Mom and Dad and asked them each if I could have $600 – they knew my career was on the line and they both said yes.

Mom’s check arrived with a nice note, wishing me the best and to let her know if I needed anything else. Dad’s check arrived with a note saying “You can consider this a loan or a gift – if it’s a loan, I’m only charging you 3% because the banks are charging 6%, and your payment is due at the first of every month. If it’s a gift, don’t ever ask me for money again.”

Well, I made it through the next 2 quarters without being able to buy any textbooks, and I don’t even know how many days of eating Top Ramen, rice cakes, and peanut butter, and sometimes nothing at all. But I paid back every cent with interest, and when I graduated, for the first time in my life, Dad shook my hand, looked me in the eye, and said “I’m proud of you.”

Welcome to adulthood.

Dad & I always had great conversations over the years – every phone call would last at least an hour, every email at least 15 paragraphs, on every road trip or hike together the topics flowed easily and with purpose. If you held a different opinion or had a different outlook on something than he did, he always asked open-ended follow-up questions with respect, and actively listened – a skill that I’m still working on…what I wouldn’t give to have one more of those with him now…

When Dad went into the hospital just before he passed, I got to spend some time that first night with him alone. He was in and out of sleep, and his ability to communicate was slowly getting worse by the hour. When he would wake up I’d talk to him about my memories of him and our family growing up, of the life-lessons he taught me, of stories about my childhood, and the mischief that I’d gotten into that he probably didn’t know about, or at least the full story. Occasionally I’d get a slight smile or a grunt attempt at a chuckle. Then he’d drift back off to sleep, and I’d sit there in silence, watching him breathe, and hoping he was dreaming of happier days gone by.

The last time I saw him was in the hospital room, surrounded by our family. When it came time to leave, I put my hand on his, stroked his hair, kissed him on the forehead and said “I love you Dad” – and very faintly, he managed to mumble a whisper back – “I love you too.”

I can’t think of a more beautiful way for a father and son to say goodbye, and it’s the parting memory of him that I will proudly carry with me for the rest of my life.

They say tears are the price we pay for loving someone – well Dad – you were certainly loved.