Mary Catherine Lundquist

Mary Catherine (Thomas, Sallie) Lundquist passed away May 21, 2024. She was born June 21, 1921 to John H. and Vera B. (King) Thomas in Tucson, AZ. Catherine, her name preference, finished public school in Tucson, and in the Fall of 1939 registered at the University of Arizona. That Christmas she met her first husband-to-be, Glen Sallie, who was in his second year at the U of A. They married after his military commissioning in the Spring of 1942. Capt. Sallie was killed in combat near Manila, Philippines in the Spring of 1945. Catherine had returned to the U of A to finish her last year and graduated Spring 1944 from the College of Social and Behavioral Science in the Department of Psychology. She was a member of Alpha Phi Sorority, Beta Epsilon Chapter.

Catherine spent the next two years as a Juvenile Probation Officer for the Pima County Superior Court in Tucson. She also administered psychological tests to her clients and for the Superior Court in special cases as there was no court psychologist at that time. In 1946, through a mutual friend, Catherine met an airman from the air base in Tucson. Ward Lundquist was an Aerial Combat Photo Officer attached to the heavy bombers ready to go to Japan. As his services were no longer needed, the war had ended, he was waiting for his discharge. Catherine and Ward were married that summer. Ward was a graduate of the North Dakota State School of Pharmacy and was looking for a pharmacy to buy. They spent that first year in Saco, MT, then on to Tulsa, OK where their first child, John, was born in January 1948. Ward heard the drugstore in Rockford, WA was for sale and knew the town as his mother had grown up there and he had visited his grandparents many times while they still lived there. He bought the store and served the community for several years before closing the door for the last time twenty years later. During that time, Karen arrived in June 1949, and Mary Ellen was born September 1953. Catherine was a homemaker and loved baking bread, cooking special desserts for the family and sewing for her girls. When the children were young, she was busy with their activities and those of her husband. She was a devoted mother who once said her children were her greatest achievement.

Ward passed away in 2003. Catherine remained in the family home under the excellent care of son John, which continued when they moved to a cottage at Good Samaritan in Spokane Valley. She is survived by son John Lundquist, daughters Karen (Steve) Getman and Mary Ellen (Tom) Wall, five grandchildren and four great grandchildren. There will be no service at her request. Private inurnment at Fairview Cemetery in Rockford, WA.