Grace Hines spent most of her life where she was born, in Aberdeen. Yet a tribute to her faith and love of family has a lasting place in Snohomish County.
In 2004, a dedication was held for the second permanent building at south Everett’s Archbishop Thomas J. Murphy High School. The building houses the Catholic school’s student center and lunchroom, a catering kitchen and three classrooms.
A major expansion for the campus that opened in 1999, the building is called Grace Hall. While the word “grace” would be a fitting name at any religious school, the hall was named in honor of two people: Grace Hines and her infant granddaughter, Anna Grace Hines, who died in 1998.
Grace Eileen Hines died July 5, surrounded by loved ones who brought her to live in Snohomish and helped her through a four-year struggle with cancer.
“She wanted to be with her kids,” said her son, Fred Hines Jr. of Snohomish. “She was always there for her children and her grandchildren.”
A longtime member of the Archbishop Murphy High School board of trustees, Fred Hines Jr. donated the lead gift in the capital campaign for the $1.28 million Grace Hall.
This fall, Hines and his wife, Dawn, will have three of their six children enrolled at Archbishop Murphy. Two other Hines children go to St. Mary Magdalen School in Everett, where Grace Hines is honored at a Legacy Plaza.
A name on a building doesn’t begin to convey her deep involvement in her grandchildren’s schools.
“She knew a lot of the parents at St. Mary Magdalen, and a lot of people knew her. She never missed anything,” said Fred Hines, who chuckled about his mother’s favorite pastime at the grade school’s Halloween party. “She was the cake-walk queen,” he said.
Sister Joanne McCauley, principal at St. Mary Magdalen School, remembers Grace Hines as “a truly great woman.”
Grace Hines was widowed and living in Aberdeen when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2003. After surgery, she moved into Fred Hines’ home in Snohomish and was treated by the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.
Despite her illness, she attended countless school and sporting events to see her grandchildren, who are involved in baseball, football, golf and Western riding.
Together, they all went on ski trips and to Palm Springs, Calif. On a trip to Disney World in Florida, “she would go from 7 in the morning until 12 at night,” Fred Hines said. “She didn’t want to miss anything.”
Dawn Hines said at first it was challenging with her mother-in-law in the busy household. Lisa Emery, Grace Hines’ daughter and a licensed practical nurse, helped care for her mother.
“Grace was the one who made you slow down and smell the flowers,” Dawn Hines said. “She was a very strong woman with incredible faith.”
Born in Aberdeen on March 28, 1934, to Benjamin and Valarie Zembal, Grace Hines is survived by her children Lisa Emery, Paul Hines and Frederick Hines Jr., of Snohomish, and Valarie Ripley, of Olympia; by 16 grandchildren, Alyssa, Karissa, Erin, Keera, Robbie, Amber, Frederick III, Jacob, Allyson, Jessalyn, Anthony Jr., Haylee, Benjamin, Vinnie, Walter and Jillian; and by her sister Irene Stipic and her family, of Aberdeen.
She was preceded in death by her parents, her husband Frederick Hines Sr., her daughter Theresa Marie, and granddaughter Anna Grace Hines.
A graduate of J.M. Weatherwax High School in Aberdeen, she earned a bachelor of science degree from Seattle University and was trained as a lab technologist at Seattle’s Harborview Hospital.
Back in Aberdeen, where her husband had a tractor business, they raised four children. For 42 years, she worked at St. Joseph Hospital and later Grays Harbor Community Hospital.
When he was a child, Fred Hines said his mother would work during school hours and be home after school. Their grandparents in Aberdeen helped care for the children, a situation that came full circle when Grace moved to Snohomish.
She was a seamstress and knitter, and Fred Hines recalled homemade pajamas and bathrobes his mother made for her children every Christmas.
“On Christmas Eve, she was still sewing every year. Some years, she’d run out of time, box them up and wrap them, but we’d have to give them back to her,” he said.
“She was a very giving person,” Fred Hines said.
And in her name, the son’s gift lives on – for generations of students to come.
Reporter Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
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