For decades, Bert Spada took it upon himself to check on the Skykomish River. He would load his kids in the truck, and off they would go.
“We didn’t know if the river was going someplace,” said his stepdaughter, Marti Erickson. “He must have spent $350 a month on gas, and never left Monroe.”
Erickson said Spada was never anything less than a father to her, rather than a stepfather. Her mother married Spada when the children were 8, 9 and 10 years old.
“He did a heroic job,” Erickson said. “He raised three kids, not his flesh and blood, with a big heart that maybe conventional families didn’t experience.”
Her mother, Martha, died 11 days before Spada did on Oct. 29. She had cancer. Her husband died unexpectedly of kidney failure. He was 77.
“It was such a shock,” said stepdaughter Anita Randolph. “He went so fast.”
Sultan Police Chief Fred Walser disagrees that Spada spent $350 a month on gas for his truck.
“It was probably double that,” Walser said. “Bert would drive around in that truck.”
Walser’s children, Matt and Scott, took to driving the same way as Spada, with one arm resting on the open window and the other on the wheel. Walser said Spada was an unofficial parent to many of the neighborhood kids.
“He was truly a nice guy,” Walser said. “Some learned their work ethic from Bert.”
Spada, who was raised in Index, was the parking lot supervisor for 10 years at the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe. He was named Fair Honoree in 2001 after 30 years of volunteer service.
“He was a great supervisor,” said Bob Wieneke, who worked with Spada at the fair. “He always appeared to be busy, always had some place to go. He liked the entertainment and never wanted to miss it.”
At 16, Spada became the first Eagle Scout in the Skykomish Valley. He graduated from Sultan High School in 1946 and served in the Army during the Korean War. He worked for the Snohomish County road district for 33 years, then worked part-time for Joplin Paving for another 10 years.
A longtime member of the Monroe Eagles, Lions Club and American Legion, Spada donated his time to building sports fields. He also helped around the old Sky Valley Speedway and Evergreen Speedway in Monroe.
Spada was preceded in death by his father, Bert Sr., and mother, Ellen, both Index pioneers. He is survived by sister Lucy of Monroe; stepdaughters Anita Randolph of Everett, and Marti Erickson of Cashmere; and stepson D.R. “Butch” Brown of Everett. He had several grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Spada sometimes would refer to his children and those who worked for him as “knuckleheads. “If they goofed off, they got a lecture.
“We learned if we earned the lecture, you’d better sit down,” Erickson said. “It would take a while. You didn’t need notes, because you would hear it again.”
For fun, her father played with his children in the back yard, built stilts or took them camping and fishing. Even the girls learned to work on cars. Erickson said his stepchildren called him Bert, but they will always remember him as their dad.
Tony Bonnallie said he will never forget his time with his grandfather, who showed how deep his heart was, hanging on for grandma.
“He was a gentle giant,” Bonnallie said. “In your 20s and 30s, you should be grown up enough to not look forward to riding around in a truck with your grandpa, checking the river, but I still did.”
Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451 or oharran@heraldnet.com.
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