Joanne E. Keller

Joanne Elaine (Walter) Keller, 92, peacefully slipped away from this earth on Dec. 17, 2021 at the Franke Tobey Jones retirement community in Tacoma, Wash. She died surrounded by her family and friends in her last days. Joanne is survived by her children David (Shelly Parsons) Keller, Nuh (Besa) Keller, Nancy (Rick) Keller-Scholz and Will Keller; 10 grandchildren; 15 great-grandchildren; three great-great-grandchildren and extended family. She was preceded in death in 2010 by her beloved husband of 59 years, Harold L. “Corky” Keller.

Joanne was born to Jacob Walter, Jr. and Rachel Macdonald Walter April 13, 1929 at the family farm south of Batum, Wash. The youngest of three children, her older siblings were Carol Walter Evavold and Don Walter. One of her earliest memories was riding across the wheat fields on her pony, Paint, to visit her first cousin Stanley Oliver.

Joanne graduated in 1947 from Odessa High School, lettering in tennis. She especially enjoyed her senior year when her family moved to a new brick house in Odessa. At sixteen she met Corky Keller of Wilson Creek, at an Odessa City Hall dance, which she attended with friend Betty Lou Winter. Joanne married in 1950, after graduating from Sacred Heart School of Nursing in Spokane. She liked to say that she was able to afford Sacred Heart, because she had learned how to raise blue-ribbon cattle from her work with the 4-H club and her dad.

Joanne worked as a nurse in California and at the then new Odessa Memorial Hospital while her husband was abroad in the Navy, working as a pharmacist on the USS Repose hospital ship during the Korean War. In Odessa, she was active at St. Joseph Catholic Church, both the Girl and Boy Scouts, and eventually taught “Candy Stripers” nursing classes to OHS students. In Odessa they raised four children, David, Ron (now Nuh), Nancy and Will. Great family times in this area included water skiing at Pacific Lake with the Evavold family and at Potholes Reservoir with the Wally and Gerry Weishaar family.

Moving to Spokane in 1974, she continued working as a nurse and helped her husband run two gift shops in Northtown. Memorable giftware (fine glass and music boxes), buying trips to Europe and then to Los Angeles followed. In Spokane, Joanne loved activities with her nearby sister Carol and was game for motorcycle club trips on Cork’s Honda Goldwing. Joanne was active at altar societies in Spokane, Mt. Vernon, Wash. and finally at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Tacoma. At the latter, she was a constant helper at many funerals and receptions.

Retiring in 1988, she and Corky moved to Mt. Vernon, where there they were active in Amway and had many large family gatherings. They also travelled extensively throughout the tulip-growing regions and the San Juan Islands. This wanderlust eventually culminated in their ownership of several ocean-going Grand Banks boats. A highlight during this era was a lengthy solo, small-craft adventure on their Wunderbar through the Inside Passage to British Columbia, Alaska and back.

Seventeen years later, they moved to Tacoma. There they enjoyed mountain and ocean views and the moderate coastal climate. An avid reader, viewer of public TV and a woman who instilled in her children a moral, humanitarian outlook, she will be missed but not forgotten. Joanne was a woman of great faith, whose love continues to be felt in the world.

A funeral mass in Tacoma is pending, as is a graveside service in Odessa. Funeral arrangements are by Edwards Memorial, phone 253-200-9770. The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be sent to St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Odessa, WA, the Odessa Historical Society, or the Franke Tobey Jones “Where Need is Greatest” fund).