Eva Mae King

"When a stone is dropped into a lake, it quickly disappears from sight—but its impact leaves behind a series of ripples that broaden and reach across the water. In the same way, the impact of one life well-lived leaves behind an influence for good that touches the lives of many others." --Adapted from a quote by Roy Lessin

At the age of 100, Eva Mae King passed away peacefully at her home in Olympia and in the presence of her loving family, on October 1, 2022. The previous day, she had remarked, “It is the end of an era.” How right she was.

Eva Mae’s influence for good touched the lives of many and continues to do so after her death. Up to a few days before her death, she was astonishingly healthy and young looking for someone of her years. But while she was briefly hospitalized for pulmonary edema, she made the conscious decision that it was a good time to go. She told her loved ones that she had had a good life and asked all treatment to end. And with that, she left on her own terms, six hours after returning to her bed at home. A few minutes before her death, as family members laughed and reminisced with each other a few feet away, she looked over at them and chuckled. And so, one could say that her last word was a laugh.

Born Eva Mae Rasmussen on August 11, 1922, in Carryhurst, Wyoming, she was the second of three daughters of Carl Rasmussen and Flora (Prawl) Rasmussen.

Eva Mae spent her first few years on a ranch where Flora was employed as the cook and Carl as a ranch hand. Her father then became an engineer and the family moved to California. His job required frequent moves. There began the journey up the West Coast by automobile, with the family’s bedding on top and a trailer carrying precious housewares behind.

During one period, the family lived next to Mono Lake in California. Eva Mae often had to walk home from school at night alone. She recalled that on most nights, she felt like someone or something was watching her. The adults disregarded her fears. Then one night, someone shot a cougar that was walking along that same pathway.

Another time when Eva Mae and her sisters were young, they had to fend for themselves in a cabin in the winter because both of their parents were in the hospital for an extended period.

During the Great Depression, when Eva Mae was a teenager, her father suffered a serious on-the-job back injury, resulting in the family remaining in the small logging community of Castle Rock, Washington, for the duration of her high school years. To make ends meet, her mother started a chicken ranch. Eva Mae and her sisters helped with the chickens, and Eva Mae also picked blackberries for the local bakery. She had a busy social life, too, acting in school plays, writing for the school newspaper, and attending school dances at the Silver Lake Grange #105 with her older sister, Betty.

While Eva Mae was still in high school, she and Betty went on a double date with two brothers who were loggers. The brothers drove to pick up Eva Mae and Betty in an old Ford Model T with no floor boards. One of the brothers was named Richard (“Dick”) King. He took one look at Eva Mae and asked her to ride in the back with him, despite the fact that Richard’s official date that night was Betty. The accommodations in that car required Eva Mae to sit on Richard’s lap. She was terrified as she watched the road speed by under her feet. Thus began her adventure with a man whose energy never seemed to stop.

While Eva Mae and Richard dated, she moved with her family to Tacoma, Washington. There she attended business school and impressed her father’s co-workers in Steilacoom with her singing. Richard visited frequently. As this was during World War II, he joined the Coast Guard and became stationed in Seattle. Finally, the handsome man in his Coast Guard uniform asked Eva Mae to marry him. She did, and then she moved to Seattle where she bore their first child, Diane. After Richard was medically discharged from the service, the three of them moved to Olympia, Washington, where Eva Mae bore two more children: Dixie and Cheryl. Richard said he was going to continue having children until Eva Mae added a boy. After that, Eva Mae bore their last child, Larry.

She then ran a household of six. Everything she did, she did expertly, including earning extra money by babysitting for working mothers while raising her own children at the same time.

After her children were old enough, Eva Mae took a job with the City of Olympia as the executive assistant to the well-liked City of Olympia Manager, Eldon Marshall. She served as his assistant for decades. Eldon liked to say, “if you need something, just ask Eva Mae.”

Sewing shirts for Richard and clothes for her children was another of Eva Mae’s talents. Her children wore few store-bought items. She also knitted, crocheted, quilted, and elaborately decorated cakes. In her retirement, her fingers never stopped crocheting beautiful table clothes and doilies while she watched her favorite TV shows: Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and sports with Richard and friends. All of her grandchildren were recipients of her beautiful work.

And then there was her cooking. Eva Mae’s cooking was legendary across the U.S. Richard’s career as head purchasing agent for the then-Washington State Liquor Control Board provided a pool of acquaintances as lunch and dinner guests at the King home. Because of his magnetic personality, and as was his habit, Richard called Eva Mae frequently with last minute invites. He would tell her that someone from New York or Germany or some other place was coming to their house for lunch or dinner that day, and she always managed to have a meal ready for the unexpected guests. Her brunch of the pastries called Dutch babies, along with Jimmy Dean sausages, were a frequent request from visitors, as were her home-canned peaches and plums.

Another favorite was her clam chowder. Every year, the family took their little Shasta trailer to dig razor clams at Ocean Shores. As Richard liked to say, Eva Mae cooked “the best clam chowder you will ever eat,” and he claimed it had guests lining up. Many good friends followed Richard and Eva Mae down to the ocean for the day because they were guaranteed great food and conversation.

After Eva Mae and Richard bought their beloved Born Free RV, they began traveling more often because it was so easy. Eva Mae would host gatherings and cook in this house on wheels. They visited friends and relatives all over the country.

They also liked to fly. Richard’s Coast Guard retirement benefits included the ability to fly for free on stand-by on flights from the nearby McCord Air Force Base. When their son, Larry, was stationed abroad in the military, Eva Mae and Richard used their free flights to explore those destinations, including Korea, Germany, Denmark, the East Coast, and the Carolinas. All the while, Richard snapped pictures of everything and everyone he met. Eva Mae organized the pictures into albums for their family.

After Richard passed away in 1996, Eva Mae continued to travel, spending winters in Florida with her daughter and summers in Olympia in the same home she had lived in since about 1948. She lived independently in that home until her death.

Eva Mae is preceded in death by her husband, Richard W. King; her son, Larry H. King; and her sisters, Betty Pumphrey and Ina Dee Churchill. She is survived by three children: Diane J. King (Tim Happeny), of Lacey, Washington; Dixie A. Reitz (Ken), of Oakville, Washington; and Cheryl D. Webster (Gary Gibson), of Merritt Island, Florida, and Bainbridge Island, Washington. She is also survived by 11 grandchildren, 31 great-grandchildren, and 14 great-great-grandchildren.

A memorial service for Eva will be held Saturday, January 7, 2023 at 12:30 PM at Mills & Mills Funeral Home, 5725 Littlerock Rd. SW, Washington 98512, followed by a catered reception at 1:30 PM. Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.millsandmillsfunerals.com for the King family.