Everett native loved roaming country in RV

Published 5:34 pm Saturday, December 18, 2010

Betty Claire Kirchgessner’s 90th birthday cake was decorated with the likeness of a motorhome.

She loved nothing more than zooming around the country, stopping to see friends, museums and thrift shops.

She was born in Everett, Sept. 26, 1920, when the Claire family lived on Everett Avenue between Walnut and Maple Streets. She lived in Everett for seven years, then the family moved to California.

Known as a tomboy, Kirchgessner would threaten her older brothers that she would sock them if they didn’t let her ride their bikes, said her son, Ed Kirchgessner.

The tomboy turned into quite the lady, said her husband, Ed Kirchgessner. Before marrying, their families knew one another in Everett and years later he saw her at Thanksgiving 1939.

While he was on leave from service on the USS Craven, friends Joe and Lenora Claire, who lived near Los Angeles, invited him to their home. They also invited their niece, Betty Claire.

“I saw Betty there,” Mr. Kirchgessner said. “I fell in love with her right then. She was damn good looking.”

Betty Kirchgessner died Nov. 1 from throat cancer. She was a excellent seamstress, making clothes, dolls and quilts for family members. She was a lifelong member of the Fleet Reserve Association and Submarine Veterans of World War II.

She is survived by her husband; sons Pete Kirchgessner and his wife, Susie, of Lake Stevens, and Ed Kirchgessner and his wife, Ardis, of Alger; eight grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.

Mr. Kirchgessner was 67 miles outside of Pearl Harbor during the attack of Dec. 7. 1942. His ship cruised into the harbor and he saw the USS Oklahoma upside down and the USS Arizona burning.

From Pearl Harbor he shipped to San Diego on a Navy transport. He drove with his fiancee to Arizona and they got married 68 years ago.

Mr. Kirchgessner went to submarine school in Connecticut. Their son, Pete, was born in Connecticut in 1946. In 1948 they transferred to Key West, Fla., where son Ed was born.

Pete Kirchgessner said when they were growing up, their mother let her boys make their own mistakes.

One exception, though, was when he wanted to work for the state highway department after high school. His mother told him college was the way to go.

“I went to college,” Pete Kirchgessner said. “It was the one time she insisted. I did what she said.”

His mother, an excellent cook. was the financial brains of the outfit, Pete Kirchgessner said. She sewed their shirts and coats. She taught her boys how to price items by units.

“That was her thing,” her son said. “If she could save a few pennies on canned goods, she was in heaven.”

After Mr. Kirchgessner retired from the Navy in 1958, they lived in Granite Falls where he worked for Sumner Iron Works. The couple started a Good Sam Club in 1967 and attended rallies in Oregon, Idaho, Colorado and California.

Betty Kirchgessner was a state treasurer for the Good Sam Club and they attended a rally with 800 rigs in 1976 in Moses Lake. The Snohomish County club was called the Sloshin Sams.

They traveled the country after Mr. Kirchgessner retired in 1982. In 1990 they sold their house in Granite Falls and lived in motorhomes for three years. They bought a home in the Mobile Country Club in Everett in 1993.

The couple loved square dancing and belonged to the Pilchuck Promenaders that met at Granville Grange near Granite Falls. They kept their motor home at Pilaguamish Community Club for RVs near Granite Falls.

Betty Kirchgessner was a map expert. She taught others in the Good Sam Club how to read maps and her motorhome led the way on caravans.

She also was a 1966 charter member of a TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) group in Everett. Member Doris Moran said they met at 10 a.m. Mondays in Everett, then they often went to lunch at Glacier Lanes.

They all took a train trip to Milwaukee for a TOPS convention.

“Betty was a vibrant lady,” Moran said. “She never had a bad word to say.”

Betty Kirchgessner was always ready to do anything fun, said her friend, Carol Conway. At Fleet Reserve events, Conway said Betty Kirchgessner always brought her famous spinach dish, that became known as Betty’s Salad.

She wore sleeveless blouses and black slacks. Mrs. Kirchgessner never watched television, preferring to read mysteries and novels by Nora Roberts.

Her husband said the couple never argued and were best friends.

His wife knew how to make him toe the line.

“She said if I didn’t quit smoking cigars, she would start smoking cigarettes,” Mr. Kirchgessner said. “She even went out and bought a pack of Salems.”

At a Valentine’s party in California, the master of ceremonies asked people how they met their mates.

Once, at a wedding shower in Everett, their mothers put baby Ed and baby Betty together in the same crib.

“We met in bed,” Betty Kirchgessner said, to the shock of the crowd.

She won dinner for two and big box of chocolates.

Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451; oharran@heraldnet.com.