We moved into our house the fall of 1984. It was the month a stubborn tire fire at a former landfill made a sooty mess of Everett.
On move-in day, our 19-month-old daughter was busily underfoot. Dressed in overalls that grew ever grubbier, she amused herself scrambling up and down the porch steps. I’ll never forget our next-door neighbor coming to say hello.
She was a lovely lady, in her late 60s then, blond, beautifully groomed and far too polite to comment on our toddler’s obvious need of a bath. She took a look at our little girl and said she was delighted to have her next door. Asking if we planned to put our daughter in the upstairs corner bedroom, she said there had been girls in that room for 40 years.
That was my introduction to the woman I’ve known from then until now as Mrs. Waltz.
When I read the Local section of Sunday’s Herald, my heart sank when I saw that Marie Waltz died Oct. 9. She was 92. In fragile health for the past year, she’d been living in a retirement community.
I’ve missed seeing her out for the walks she took with intrepid regularity around our block. Even slowed after knee-replacement surgery, and later, when she needed a walker, she would put on her red jacket and take her late-afternoon stroll.
Despite living side-by-side for two decades, I can’t claim to be a close friend. A dignified woman with the habits of an earlier time, she had friends from her church, Immaculate Conception in Everett, and ladies who’d come to play bridge.
Our daily interaction was apt to be a quick wave as I’d leave for work in the morning. We’d chat over a hedge from the back porches of our old houses. Sometimes, I’d catch the aroma of a dinner she’d be cooking.
When my older children were small and Marie Waltz’s husband, Dr. Harold Waltz, was still alive, we’d take cookies to them at Christmas. I’d coax the kids into nice clothes and lecture them about being on best behavior. During one of those visits, Dr. Waltz and I figured out he’d finished medical school 50 years before I graduated from the University of Washington.
The couple raised three children in their north Everett home, Kathryn, Elizabeth and Darnell. Several years after we moved in, they endured what no parent should have to: Their son Darnell died after a long illness.
In the years after that, Marie Waltz was steadfast as she cared at home for her husband, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. At Dr. Waltz’s funeral, a priest described Marie Waltz as “a saint.”
“Marie was a lovely lady, kind and gentle. She always had a sweet smile and a kind word for you,” said Ramona Bly, our longtime across-the-street neighbor. “Marie was my neighbor for over 40 years, and you couldn’t find a better neighbor.”
She is survived by Kathryn Marie Jolly and her husband, Ron; Elizabeth Ann Luce, and her husband, Jim; and grandchildren Brian and Sean Jolly, Tom and Anne Luce, and Gene Waltz.
Her pretty smile hid a steely strength. She was part of what’s come to be known as the greatest generation. Their World War II sacrifices shaped their lives.
Raised on a farm in Missouri and trained as an obstetrical nurse, young Marie Mayse joined the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1943. She met Harold Waltz at a USO dance in Texas. Stationed in Europe during the war, they were married in 1945 at Rheims Cathedral in France.
She was self-reliant and private. I wish now I’d risked invading her privacy. I should have asked about those war years. I should have told her I admired her resilience.
From a neighbor’s distance, I saw how much she endured. Yet what I remember is a sunny smile.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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