Beatrice was born in Vancouver, B.C., and was raised by her loving, adoptive parents, Johan and Elin Rylander. Upon high school graduation she attended beauticians' school and became a licensed hair stylist. In 1951, Beatrice married Olaf Granen, and they immigrated to Seattle. Shortly thereafter, they both became U.S. citizens. Beatrice and Olaf were the proud parents of four children and Beatrice spent many years as a homemaker, providing a steady hand, guiding her children through their growing years. Later, she assisted her husband with his growing real estate business, by managing the office.
Many fond memories were made during the summers spent at the family's Camano Island summer home, clam digging, blackberry picking and swimming. And in later years, at their home on the shore of Hood Canal. Beatrice loved traveling, swimming, gardening, music, the arts and of course, spending as much time as possible, with her loving grandchildren.
Beatrice volunteered on many committees at Faith Lutheran Church in Seattle and Northlake Lutheran Church in Kenmore, WA, as well as giving of her time as a Girl Scout leader for many years. In her later years, she was a choir member at Edmonds Lutheran Church and became a member of P.E.O., Chapter G. She truly enjoyed the sisterhood of the organization. Beatrice served as a Precinct Supervisor on many Election Days, helping voters sign in and delivering the ballots to the election headquarters.
Through the adoption board of British Columbia, Beatrice traced her birth family. She felt so blessed with meeting her three loving sisters, and their families. They embraced her with open arms, which she felt immensely grateful. Beatrice remained close with her sisters until her passing. Sadly, she was predeceased by her birth parents and two brothers, whom she never met.
Beatrice was preceded by her husband Olaf Granen. She is survived by her children, Louise Berde of Spokane, Ruth Granen, Susan Granen and John Granen of Seattle, three grandchildren, Heather Posey of Johnstown, Colorado, Mara Berde of Lakewood, Colorado, Max Berde of Seattle and Beatrice's great grandson, Soren Posey.
Services will be held at Acacia Funeral Home in Seattle, on May 8th. In lieu of flowers, we welcome you to make a donation to the ASPCA, Smile Train, American Cancer Society or your favorite charity.
Louise Granen Berde’s tribute to her Mother
Beatrice Christina Rylander Granen 1928 - 2021
These socks were a gift to me from my future daughter- in-law, Jordan Garrett. On them, it says "Darn Tough." That happens to be the brand, but I don't think Jordan knows yet just how tough a family she'll be marrying into when she weds Mara. Let me tell you, anyone with Beatrice Granen's blood in their veins is tough, darn tough, just like she was. One thing I've also learned in the last month was how tough Lutherans are.
As a Jew for 41 years, I am accustomed to the speedy burial of the deceased, usually the next day. For Jews, the thirty days following a death are a period of mourning, shloshim, during which nothing is expected of you: no public appearance, no socializing, no attending to detail of any kind.
Our mother Beatrice Christina Granen died exactly four weeks ago and today we come to inter her ashes. Ruth, John and Susan have worked non-stop for a month to orchestrate a fitting tribute to our mother. They've been trying to imagine how she would have wanted it, who she would have wanted to be here today, what music she would have preferred, and which pictures she would have wanted us to see as we gathered in remembrance of her life.
My hat is off to my loving family, who know how to do things, and do them well. Mom would be very proud.
Rearing four children is a challenge under the best of circumstances. Having a husband who spent his whole career at the Seattle Times working nights was one of those circumstances. Yet Mom used that time to sew darling clothes for me and Ruth, always called "The Girls." We were called that because child number three was my brother, John, named for Mom's father, whom she called "Daddy." She adored them both.
The biggest change after John arrived was my parents' decision to move to a neighborhood with sidewalks. We didn't mind that a bit, because NE 54 th St came equipped with kids. The Miller family lived across the street and became our extended family. I don't know why, but our mother insisted, trained actually, both Bobbie and Nancy Miller to walk all the way around our house when they wanted us to play, and to inquire at our back door. Picture that their front door was just a stone's throw from ours, but they were sweet kids, so that's what they did.
Our real relatives all lived in Canada, where we had scads of cousins, aunts and uncles, but our favorites were Ann, Julie and Alice. They were closest to us in age, they had Barbie dolls and a hockey game, and we adored visiting them.
In this month of loss, and preparation, I also learned that despite the experiences my siblings and I shared, we don't all remember the same things. Because they were younger, my sisters and brother may not recall the many evenings we spent playing in empty rooms while our parents redid rental property. Money was tight, so only one house at a time earned their effort spent scraping wallpaper, cleaning ovens, painting expertly and putting in new yards. That is how Beatrice and Olaf began to fulfill their dream of sending their four children to college.
As I understand it, neither my mother nor father had graduated high school; leaving school to go to work was the norm for working class families then. Mom went to beauty school and Dad enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces. They weren't a couple then, but did know each other from church.
What I remember so clearly is that these two self-taught, hardworking individuals always spoke of college for us. There was never a mention of, or a discussion of anything else. As immigrants and naturalized citizens they were determined that their children would have it better than they did, and college was the way. I must also say that they held their citizenship very dear. Even though they frequently said that "they cancelled each other out" with their respective voting choices, neither one failed to vote, ever.
Mom and Dad also set an example in their devotion to their religion. They were never the kind of parents who just drop their children off at Sunday School. They went too, teaching, attending Bible study, ushering, throwing their backs into work projects and their time into church leadership and outreach. It was a 15 minute drive to Faith Lutheran church, so Beatrice piled us all in her somewhat reliable car to go to junior choir practice, confirmation classes and youth group meetings, in addition to services every Sunday. Her expectations for attendance didn't end with high school either. I found it somewhat difficult to drag myself from bed in my sorority on Sunday mornings, but Mom always insisted I was "right on the way!"
I took to heart their example in rearing my own children, Mara and Max. I saw religion as more than belief, it was glue. I still believe it is what holds a family together. It did for them.
By the time her adorable youngest child, Susan, was born, our Mom was 32 years old and well-ensconced in Laurelhurst life. In the neighborhood where Children's Hospital was an inspiring presence (known at that time as Children's Orthopedic Hospital, or Orthopedic for short), belonging to an "Orthopedic" guild was what you did, to make friends and to be of service. And Beatrice Rylander Granen, following her Swedish parents' example of giving to, and creating community (those two had helped found the Swedish Canadian Rest Home in Burnaby BC in the 195O's) was not only active in her "Orthopedic" Guild but was soon its president. Her fellow guild members were the college-educated wives of doctors and university professors, but she had social skills and intelligence beyond her humble beginnings, fit right in and rose to the top.
One secret to her success was something she taught me: a love of language. Mom was a voracious reader (remember that my father worked nights), a lover of Crossword puzzles and a winning Scrabble player. She maintained those skills to the very end. Reading eventually became too difficult for her, but we knew never to interrupt her with a phone call while she was watching "Jeopardy."
The success of her four children and three adored grandchildren was a deeply-felt and constant source of pride for Beatrice Granen. It was something she seldom verbalized, but the fact that each and every one rose to the top in their professions made her so happy.
Ruth became a senior trust officer and vice president of two commercial banks. John, as you probably know, is a renown commercial photographer whose work has graced covers and feature articles in Metropolitan Home, Sunset Magazine and Traditional Home, to name just a few. Susan continues in her career as a highly regarded Registered Dental Hygienist who has employed her skills in Munich Germany and Sydney Australia as well as the Seattle metropolitan area for 32 years. Louise tried lots of things, most notably a stockbroker, but for longer duration in sales, for Williams-Sonoma, Xerox, IBM, Nordstrom and Bluebeards.
Mom was never too tired or too busy to spend time with her three grandchildren. Nana (as they called her) loved caring for them whenever she was asked, making Swedish pancakes for breakfast, sewing doll clothes for each successive favorite doll, cheering at the kids' sporting events and rejoicing in their religious rites of passage. Mom attended and reveled in each graduation: Heather Christina from Washington State University in Human Development and Early Childhood Education, Max Eric, first at Tulane University then the University of Washington in Civil Engineering, and Mara Ellen, both undergraduate and Masters degrees in New York at Columbia and the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Beatrice Christina Granen was a smart, beautiful, talented woman. She loved life, she lived it large, as her best friend Evie will soon attest, and went about it fearlessly. Whether it was moving to a new country with her young husband, giving birth to four children without the support of mother or sisters, rearing them while her husband worked nights, facing cancer three times, travelling the world, accepting early widowhood, discovering her tremendous talent in art, cooking and hostessing extraordinarily and without stop, gardening to perfection (winning the top prize for her garden in the community of Edmonds) seeking and finding her family of birth, or making the decision to relinquish both home and car at the same time to move to the Bayview, for a life in the heart of the city she'd adopted seventy years before, that was our mom.
Remarks for Bea's Memorial - May 8, 2021
My name is Evelyn Williams. I live in Anacortes now and I was lucky to live across the street from Bea for a number of years. Her husband, Olaf, sadly died suddenly out on the driveway in October, 1998. A few days after his memorial service, Bea was at my house having something to eat and drink when my beloved husband John collapsed in the dining room. Bea did CPR on him until the Aid Car arrived. John died a couple of months later, and Bea and I were "bound at the hip", much like sisters, and certainly family.
Within a year or so I convinced Bea that we should take a trip together. The Gulf War was going on, and the Mediterranean didn't seem like a great option. I convinced Bea that we should go to Hong Kong - a place that I had been before, and I believed we would be safe. What an adventure that was- and it turned out to be the first of many trips we took between 1999 and 2009. In those 10 years we visited Mazatlán with friends, Aruba with my late husband's family, we cruised from Istanbul through Greece to Egypt. We visited my friends in Scotland and met up with them again for Thanksgiving in Hawaii. We enjoyed a short cruise to Vancouver, B.C. and a Kenmore Air adventure to Butchart Gardens with John's family. She was a great travel partner.
Everybody loved Bea. She was kind, generous and thoughtful. She was brave and she always shared her beautiful smile. She was always cheerful and always ON TIME, which is important for a roommate. She looked for the good in everyone and she was always up for a new adventure. She was incredibly smart and accomplished and no doubt could have had a great career but she chose to dedicate her life to raising her kids, taking care of the home, cooking, gardening, and being of service to her church.
She loved her family. She loved her friends and she loved her God. She was a woman of great faith and she was very wise.
I learned so much from her. I was a great baker in my own right, but Bea taught me how to cook a whole meal, how to entertain and how to set a beautiful table. She was a pro - and I recollect her telling me that for years she kept track of every menu from all her dinner parties, to be sure she didn't serve friends the same dinner again! She taught me the importance of letting go - of past hurts and injustices. Oh and how I remember that day when she got the phone call from Canada and how overjoyed she was to learn she had sisters.
Bea always included me and my Mom in holiday gatherings, and she was also a frequent guest at my home. No one could ask for a better friend. Bea was a blessing to our world, and I am very blessed to have shared life with her. A wise person once said that every person who crosses your path in life has something to give you, and you have something to give them. I believe we are all here to help each other so we don't have to learn everything by trial and error. We really are here for each other. I would not be who I am if Bea and I had not been friends.
There is a quote that has lived on my kitchen counter for many years.
"My life is like a movie,
In which I get to play myself and I get to experience it one frame at a time.
It is a foregone conclusion that the movie has a happy ending - it's in the script.
I love this film. I love my part, and if I play my cards right,
there's a good chance I'll get an Academy Award!"
Bea- I know you're fluttering around us here because you're not one to miss a gathering. I'm here to say that you EARNED an Academy Award for a life well lived!
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