Dale Ambrose Blayney

Dale was born on Dec 6, 1956 in Iowa. When he was 2 1/2 years old, his family moved to Washington State where they eventually settled in West Seattle. Dale was the oldest of eight children. He attended Arbor Heights Elementary, Denny Junior High and graduated from Chief Sealth High School in 1975. His first paying jobs were delivering “The West Seattle Herald” and “Seattle Times”. After high school, he worked full time for a few years at “The Boathouse” in White Center and for a time at “Le Clercq Maritime”.

People familiar with Dale, knew he struggled with mental illness and alcohol for much of his adult life. After all his challenges, he had grown into a gentle, sweet man, devoted to his family.

He was an incredibly hard worker and happiest outdoors, tending his tomato plants or helping family members and neighbors with their yards. Dale had a love for black coffee, ice cream, classic rock and was usually seen in his baseball cap, with his headphones on and the volume turned up way tooooo LOUD!

Dale was always willing to go anywhere. Just ask him and he’d be ready in his best black jeans with his shirt tucked in. He especially loved going to the family cabin near Yelm or up to the Lodge for Thanksgiving. No one could peel a 10lb bag of potatoes quite like Dale.

He was adored by his nieces and nephews. They could count on him to do their ‘bidding’ any time of the day. He collected the families’ aluminum pop cans (“donations” as he called them), crushed and took them to be recycled…, then gave the proceeds to the kids.

Dale had a tendency to ‘ramble’ and live in the past, but his conversations could be entertaining and sometimes amusing. To all those who took time to have ‘conversations’ with Dale, please know that you made his day!

Dale passed away on October 25, 2013 surrounded by his family.

Dale is preceded in death by his father Robert. He is survived by his mother Mary Lou, and siblings Annette, Teressa, Virginia, Marc, Roberta (Lance Tookey), Marilyn (Jill Myers) and Patrick (Tanya). Nieces and nephews Andrew (Prieda), Mikaela, Jaret, Brianna, Brandon, Ruby, Georgia, Owen and Annalee. Numerous aunts, uncles, cousins and family friends.

His family learned a lot about tolerance, acceptance and finding satisfaction in the smallest of things from Dale. He was loved and will be missed.

The family wishes to ‘Thank’ everyone for their words of comfort, incredible kindness and love during the past few weeks.