Life Story: Lake Stevens teacher recalled for her positive attitude

Children were life’s joy to Sandy Porter. A devoted mother of three sons, she was also a respected and well-liked preschool teacher.

Positive, that’s the word Porter’s loved ones and friends echoed again and again in describing her.

“Sandy was always the positive one. She never got angry, never got mad at people,” said Tammie Harrison, one of Porter’s sisters.

Heather Ruprecht was a co-worker at Country Dawn Preschool &Childcare in the Lake Stevens area, where Porter had worked for six years. “She was such a positive person,” Ruprecht said.

“She was so positive, it drove us all crazy,” said Tom Porter, Sandy’s husband of 22 years.

Sandra Kay Goosman Porter died July 22 at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center. She was 46. Her death came several days after she suffered a stroke while on an outing on the Stillaguamish River. She and her youngest son, Zeb, 15, had been riding inner tubes near her father’s Darrington area cabin.

The loss stunned loved ones who remembered Porter as a fit woman who exercised daily and carefully watched her diet.

“She was in very good shape, slender, a jogger,” said Rod Goosman, an older brother who lives in Ellensburg.

“She worked on being healthy,” said Gene Goosman, another brother, from Mukilteo. “She did yoga, jogged every day and walked her dog,” he said.

“It was so shocking,” said Julie Bliven, owner and director of Country Dawn Preschool &Childcare. “She worked a long day that Friday and said goodbye.”

“She was a stellar employee who never missed a day. Rain, snow, sleet, she was always there, and always went above and beyond,” said Bliven, adding that Porter had been taking community college courses in early childhood education through a scholarship program.

“She was a full-time mom with her kids in sports, and she goes and gets great grades,” Bliven said. “She was just a great, great woman. People admired and respected her. And her boys — she always had stories.”

Sandra Porter is survived by her husband, Tom; by sons Dylan, 20, Cody, 19, and Zeb, 15; by her parents Gene and Kay; brothers Gene, Rod and Gary; sisters Diana and Tammie; and by many other loved ones and friends. Another brother, Rick, preceded her in death.

“Those boys were her life, you couldn’t say anything wrong about her boys,” said her brother Gene, who was in high school when his youngest sister was born. He said whenever his sister would move to a new area, she would look for a church. For the past year, she had worshipped at Hope Church at Silver Lake.

“She was very outgoing, a good, happy person, and a Christian,” said brother Rod Goosman. Because they were close in age, he said, Sandy and sister Tammie were especially close.

Tammie Harrison, who lives in Arizona, cherishes memories of growing up in Mountlake Terrace, where their father built a playhouse in the back yard. “When I was in fifth grade and Sandy was in second grade, we turned it into a schoolhouse,” Harrison said. “We had everything, a chalk board, stars to correct papers, we had a real school going.”

Their best friends in those years were sisters Laurie and Julie Bollinger. Now Laurie Bollinger Cornell, Sandy’s former childhood friend later moved to Lake Stevens and was reacquainted with Sandy. They had gone to Mountlake Terrace High School together, but later went separate ways.

“She was so much fun growing up,” said Cornell, who also knew Sandy from vacations at Lake Chelan. “She loved the sun, loved Chelan, loved her boys and loved teaching.

“It wasn’t stuff that made her happy. She didn’t shop at Nordstrom or have a fancy car. It was her boys, the kids she taught, her brother and sisters, she loved people,” Cornell said.

Gene Goosman said his sister had every reason to be proud of her sons. “Dylan wants to be a policeman. Cody is an exceptional baseball player who goes to Edmonds Community College. And Zeb, the youngest, gets straight A’s in Lake Stevens. They’re really active boys,” he said.

“That was Sandy — her boys,” said Tom Porter, who met his wife-to-be when they worked at a Larry’s Market grocery store. He was a butcher, and she worked in the bakery. They moved to Alaska and spent time in Arizona before coming back to the Lake Stevens and Everett areas.

At Country Dawn, Bliven said that children involved in Porter’s summer program were helped with their loss by a school music specialist who is also involved in children’s ministry at a hospital. “We had a gathering at our school Tuesday night,” Bliven said. “All the children wrote cards. Kids who had her last year are really grieving.”

Tom Porter recalled happy times. On family trips to the Oregon coast, they would walk the beach looking for sand dollars. When he thinks of his wife, it’s joy he remembers.

“It’s the joy she always had around the boys,” he said.

For information on how to help the Porter family, e-mail Tammie Harrison at chidog1_2000@yahoo.com or Tom Porter at whyitis@yahoo.com.

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; muhlstein@heraldnet.com.