Hattie Elinor Barr Kamps

Hattie Elinor Barr Kamps Born February 8, 1924, in Kansas City, Kansas, first child of four born to Mary Ethel Johnson Barr and Jesse Augustus Barr. Siblings were Florence, Marion (surviving) and Jesse. The family moved west to Redwood City, California, when Hattie was two years old. She remembers the trip with her baby sister Florence, in the Ford Model A, camping along the way, and the isinglass windows which rolled up and down. Later she moved with the family to Sweet Home, Oregon, and graduated from Sweet Home High School as salutatorian. She helped her dad on the ranch while she waited for her sister Florence to graduate. They moved together to Portland, Oregon, and joined the Nurse Cadet Corp. By the time she graduated, WWII had ended. In her adventurous spirit she went to practice nursing and fight polio epidemics and meet her best friend, Irene Maycock, in places like Boise, Chicago and Sitka, Alaska. She fell in love with the wild Alaska beauty and adventure of it all. She also met the handsome Bert Kamps and fell in love. They married in 1954 in Kelso, Washington. Their first two daughters, Kathleen Page, and then Laurie, were born in Cordova, AK, prior to statehood. They later moved to Edmonds, Washington, where Janet Mardell and then Ronald Bert were born. She was a member of the Rhododendron Society and her love of gardening lives on through her children and grandchildren. She lived in her home in Richmond Beach for fifty years. She died three days short of her 63rd wedding anniversary. She is survived by her husband Bert, brother Marion, her four children and six grandchildren, Hannah, Benjamin, Amelia, Peter, Rachel and Alexander. She was dearly loved and will be missed by all.