SNOHOMISH — Margaret Hedeen moved into a cabin without running water, heat or electricity in rural Snohomish.
She and her husband, Bob, bought 40 acres of property and moved there from Everett after they married in October 1946.
The cabin where the couple began their married life together was small. The Hedeens built onto their home and added plumbing and electricity themselves. They had to haul water out of a well until they were able to get running water in the early 1960s. They managed the Dubuque Cut-off Road Water Corp. and led a neighborhood effort to dig a pipeline corridor by hand.
Margaret continued to manage the corporation for nearly 20 years after her husband’s death in 1969. She also loved spending time outdoors, traveling and taking care of her two daughters, Mary Hampton and Robbie Hedeen, and several nieces and nephews.
Hedeen and her twin brother were born on Sept. 24, 1927, in a two-room log cabin in Gresham, Ore., to Willis and Ethel Aldrich of Everett. She died on Nov. 13 in Snohomish. She was 82.
Hedeen was preceded in death by her parents, her husband and her nine siblings.
Hedeen appreciated when things were done well and had a strong, independent spirit, her daughter, Robbie, said.
“Her family was very poor growing up in the (Great) Depression and I think from her childhood she came out with a very strong sense of being independent. She would never take aid from anyone,” she said. “I really think it colored her beginning.”
She liked to tell stories about the times her family camped on Camano Island during school breaks and summer months and shared her love for the outdoors with her own family, she added.
“We spent every sunny day under the bridge on the Dubuque Road on the Pilchuck River,” Robbie said. “It’s where we would hang out. We spent a lot of time on the river.”
Hedeen taught her children to swim. During family camping trips she cooked pancakes so they wouldn’t be hungry waiting for their father’s trout breakfast. She sewed pajamas and made other clothes for her daughters, sometimes making a matching outfit for their dolls. She loved crafting, especially ceramics. Her flaky pie crusts and pies were the best in the family.
“She could do anything. Anything could be taken on and tackled,” Robbie said. “If a toaster was broken she got out a screwdriver and fiddled with it. She found ways to get things done, get things fixed.”
Margaret Hedeen dropped out of school when she was 16 to help take care of her sister’s children. She rescued her niece, Virgie Aldridge, and her baby nephew from a fire in the mid-1940s when an oil stove ignited and burned doen the building they lived in.
“Aunt Margaret burned her hair off and when it came back it was curly and wavy,” Aldridge said.
She traveled all over the state and took trips to Yellowstone National Park, the Grand Canyon, California, Hawaii and Mexico. She also took a three-week trip to Central Africa in 1986 to visit her daughter while she was working for the Peace Corps.
Closer to home, Hedeen liked to stay busy by volunteering. She was a member of the Extension Homemakers and served as the Washington state president of the National Extension Homemakers Council from 1983 to 1985. She was also a member of TOPS, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Snohomish First Baptist Church. At the Snohomish Senior Center, she put her accounting skills to use by offering free tax help.
She became a Camp Fire Girls leader when she started a Blue Bird group for her niece, Diane Wall, when Diane was in the first grade.
“She had a big huge tent put up in the yard one summer and we had our camp out there,” Wall said. “She taught us to make a reflector oven so we would bake outside and we picked things to eat. It was almost like a survival lesson.”
Hedeen encouraged her children to do well in school and returned to school herself after raising her family. She earned her GED in 1978 and her associate degree at Everett Community College in 1980. After earning her degree, she did bookkeeping for Brandvold Construction.
Above all else, her aunt cared about others and always made people feel welcome when they were in her home, Aldridge remembered.
“We just spent every single holiday and weekend that we could out there in that house,” she said.
Amy Daybert: 425-339-3491, adaybert@heraldnet.com.
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