William James Powers

Bill Powers Flying High

By Teru Lundsten

At the ceremony for completion of the Aurora Bridge in 1932, Navy biplanes flew under the new bridge. Young Bill Powers was so thrilled that he decided to be a pilot when he grew up.

But when he did, and tried to fly a plane, he was grounded. By airsickness. He became an attorney instead.

Bill was born April 16, 1920, in Seattle, the fifth of eight children. Except for college, law school and service in World War II, he has lived on Queen Anne all his life.

His father, a general contractor and developer, built upwards of 200 houses in Queen Anne as well as the convent at St. Anne’s Church. He also built the house in which Bill grew up, on West Ray Street (before Zip codes, Ray and Roy streets were often confused, so an “e” was eventually added to the spelling of Raye.)

At the age of 8, Bill began to help his father by cleaning plaster off floors. In those days, walls were plastered (there was no such thing as drywall), and inevitably some plaster splattered on the floor. To this day, Bill enjoys refinishing wood surfaces.

Raised Catholic, he attended St. Anne’s School through eighth grade. During the week, walking home from school, he and his friends sometimes saw kids from public school who would holler, “Here come the cat-lickers!” On weekends, they played ball amicably with the very same kids.

Bill whiled away summer days with his siblings and friends at Ballard Beach now long gone (it was replaced by Shilshole Bay Marina). Unlike nearby Golden Gardens, where the water is cold even on the hottest day, the water at Ballard Beach was pleasantly warm. Bill’s mother insisted that her children swim there instead of in lakes because she believed, as many did, that children could get “infantile paralysis” by swimming in fresh water.

When he was a teenager, Bill began to work summers for his father. The lazy days were in the past.

For high school he attended Seattle Preparatory School. He went to “mixers” at the Queen Anne Community Center because there weren’t many opportunities to meet girls at school. At the mixers, local bands played ensemble arrangements of the big-band music popular at the time.

In 1939 Bill graduated from high school and went on to Seattle College (now Seattle University), a Jesuit school. He began to major in economics, but his studies were interrupted by World War II. He enlisted the day Pearl Harbor was bombed.

In the Air Corps, Bill served four months at the three different bases in California, but flunked flight school because of persistent airsickness – something that, unfortunately he has never gotten over. He returned to Seattle College and enrolled in an accelerated program which enabled him to graduate in June 1943 with a hybrid degree in a variety of sciences – a new degree designed especially for students who intended to join the military.

Determined to serve his country, he re-entered the military this time the Army, and was assigned to the infantry. After basic training in Oklahoma he was sent overseas with A Company of the 313th Infantry Regiment, 79th Division. Deployed all over northern Europe, the 79th was part of the fourth wave of Allied troops that invaded the beached of Normandy on D-Day. Bill’s company landed on the sixth day of the invasion. By then the battle on the beaches was won, so their unit didn’t suffer as many casualties as those that had gone before. “For that,” “I am eternally thankful”.

In combat, religious prejudices disappeared. “They put us all together,” says Bill. “Your Battalion’s chaplain could be of any faith, and it didn’t matter. You might meet your Maker at any moment, so you greatly relied on your chaplain and weren’t picky about the details.”

Bill recalls his service with pride and grief, and tells stories of fallen comrades as if it were yesterday.

Five Powers boys served in the war. (The eldest son did not; sadly, he died before the war of an adverse reaction to penicillin.) They were written up in local papers. Bill’s mother saved the clippings in a memory book. Five young men in individual photographs, in different uniforms, still smile from the page, now yellow and brittle.

After the war, Bill attended law school at the University of Washington on the G.I. Bill. Again, he was in an accelerated program, with classes year-round. He earned his Juris Doctor degree in June 1948 and found a job with Gene Knapp in the Hoge Building downtown.

Within a year he had become Knapp’s partner. The two had a general legal practice, and Bill represented insurance companies in subrogation and defense claims as well. But the small firm didn’t specialize. “You got the client first,” Bill explains, “then you became an expert. You read, read, read,”

Soon he and several other lawyers in the building formed their own firm. Over 25 years it evolved into Whitmore, Vinton, Powers and Ishikawa.

During this time Bill met his future wife, Joyce Bennett. One of his brothers was dating her roommate. They needed a fourth player for a game of bridge, and the rest is history. Bill’s brother and Joyce’s roommate broke up, but Bill and Joyce were married on April 16, 1955, his 35th birthday. Their next anniversary will be their 50th.

Joyce was a labor and delivery nurse at Swedish Hospital for most of her career. The couple have five children and seven grandchildren, all of whom live in Washington State.

While their kids were growing up, Bill saw a lot of community involvement. He was Cub Master of Cub Scout Pack 77, advancement chairman for Boy Scout Troop 77, president of the Queen Anne Youth Association and coach of several of its sports teams, and president of the Queen Anne Recreation Advisory Council. In that role he was instrumental in siting the Queen Anne pool where it is today.

The final 15 years of Bill’s career, before he retired in 1990 at age 70, he worked as the house attorney for Murray Franklin Inc., a construction and land development company. Once again he participated, if peripherally, in his father’s profession.

His father was a big influence in Bill’s life. Bill itemizes the ways: “My father taught me 1) Depend only on yourself, 2) Be honest, and 3) If you make a mess, clean it up, literally and figuratively: Beginning with cleaning plaster off the floor, Bill has followed his father’s advice all his life.

Bill’s motto seems to be, “You’ve got to get out and do something.” So it’s no surprise that one thing he doesn’t like about old age is that nothing and no one depends on you anymore. There is no compelling reason to get up in the morning. But what’s bad is also good. For example, there is no compelling reason to get up in the morning.

In his retirement, Bill has been plagued by health problems. He survived three different cancers and six angioplasties. But he’s philosophical about it. “The inevitable is facing me, so it is out of my mind,” he says. “I don’t worry about the future because I won’t be here”

Noting the technological progress we’ve made in the last 50 years, more than in the previous million, he says, “The rose has finally bloomed.” But the rose could wilt because we have lost incentive, he claims.

“My generation got its drive and character from growing up during the Depression and then being thrown into World War II,” he says.

“Hope lies in developing countries,” he continues, “where people are still willing to push for a better life.”

Bill attributes his longevity partially to his genes; both his parents lived into their 90s. “I picked the right parents,” he says. But activity has also been key: athletics in school, rigorous demands on the body in the infantry and skiing with his wife and children.

Now he keeps active by playing golf three times a week. He and his cronies argue lightly, but, he says, “If everybody agreed with me, it would be a terrible world – we need disagreement.”

Once a lawyer, always a lawyer.

Arrangements under the direction of Bleitz Funeral Home, Seattle, WA.