Dance teacher’s grace and beauty are remembered

Decades after taking dance lessons from Winnifred Forbes, a former student remembers her talent and grace.

“She was a beautiful woman inside and out,” said Wayne Wade. The Seattle man’s own dance career had its start in Everett, in lessons he took from Forbes.

Although her mother hadn’t danced in years, daughter Diane Powell said her elegance never faded.

“When she walked into a room, everyone noticed. She had an air about her. She was a classy lady,” said Powell, of Kirkland. “Always, she had a love for the arts.”

Winnifred Marie Forbes, 81, died March 23 at her home in Upland, Calif. She had lived there 28 years, after operating dance studios in Snohomish and Everett, raising three children and working as a legal secretary in Lynnwood.

Forbes is also survived by daughter Reita Gunderson, of Issaquah; grandchildren Marie Powell and Christopher Gunderson; and close friend Margaret Castle in California. She was preceded in death by her son, George Forbes Jr.

She had suffered an aortic aneurysm and respiratory problems.

Gunderson said her mother was just 11 when she began teaching dance at her parents’ house in Snohomish. They’d roll up the rugs and dance in the living room.

By 13, Winnie was teaching tap, ballet, hula and acrobatics at the Snohomish Library. For a time, she taught ballroom dancing with the Arthur Murray school in New Orleans.

After she met and married George Forbes Sr., the couple lived in Snohomish and then on Alverson Boulevard in Everett. Forbes built a dance studio in the Alverson house. “Her piano was purple and her studio was pink,” Gunderson said.

In the 1940s and ’50s, George Forbes was manager of the Paine Field airport.

Later, the studio was on Hewitt Avenue in downtown Everett. After the couple divorced, Winnifred Forbes moved away, eventually settling in Upland, Calif., with Margaret Castle. She’d known Castle and her late husband when they operated Castle Industries Inc. at Paine Field.

After Castle’s husband died, his widow moved the aircraft interiors business to California. Forbes worked at Castle Industries until retiring in 1994. “She loved the sun, she loved the desert,” Gunderson said.

“She was fun-loving, enthusiastic and loved to entertain,” said Gunderson, who took dance classes from her mother. “My passion at that age was English riding. My mother was trying to teach me to point my toes. With my horseback riding instructor, it was heels down, so she’d get irritated with me.”

Wayne Wade, 63, took tap dancing from Forbes in the 1950s. “She was wonderful,” he said. “Sometime when I was in high school, Winnie felt I should go to Seattle.”

He took her advice, and eventually became a tap teacher. Wade was both a student and friend of Forbes. “I was like one of her children,” he said. “If I wasn’t baby-sitting at the studio, I was dancing.”

Forbes’ niece, Linda Edwards of Everett, took classes from her aunt all through her childhood, “from 2 until 16.”

“I loved it, tap, ballet, modern jazz,” Edwards said. “She inspired me. I started taking hula 10 years ago, and I still am.”

Elaine Dupen of Kenmore is also still involved in dance. She credits the influence of Winnie Forbes. Dupen, 65, leads the Gadabouts, an over-50 performance group that dances at retirement homes.

In the 1950s, Dupen took over Forbes’ Snohomish studio. She had taken lessons there and had been a student teacher in exchange for dance lessons.

“She saw something in me I didn’t recognize,” Dupen said. “I’m so appreciative, she encouraged me and gave me self-confidence.”

Dupen remembers Forbes loaning her a dress for a recital. “My family didn’t have a lot of money. She saw a need and she met it,” Dupen said.

Powell admired her mother’s spunk, which lasted long after the years of dance recitals and in Everett’s social whirl.

“She was very up about life,” Powell said. “She was always someone you wanted to be around. She didn’t sit around and gripe or complain. She knew how to do it right.”

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.