Think of a computer expert. The first person who comes to mind isn’t likely to resemble Sharon Gaffney.
She graduated from Marysville High School in 1961. She married and raised three children. Now grown, her children remember their mother as being deeply devoted to family.
She adored her five grandchildren. She loved walking at Tulare Beach, where she lived with her husband, John.
Wife, mother, grandmother, nature lover, and yes, Gaffney was known by many as a computer whiz.
From 1981 to 1993, she worked for the Everett School District, and later ran her own business, Montara Enterprises. She specialized in database development, working with school districts around Snohomish County.
“I’m low-tech, and she was so patient,” said Larry O’Donnell, a retired Everett school administrator. “I was one of those people not wanting to get into computers. She was so upbeat.”
Sharon Lee Gaffney died April 24 after a four-year battle with ovarian cancer. She was 63.
She is survived by her husband, John Gaffney; sons Mike and Jay Gaffney; daughter Susan Cranwell; grandchildren Paige, Tyler, Zachary, Jim and Cayden; brothers Bob, Rodney and Ken Engberg; and sister Betty Hoge.
John Gaffney met his wife on a blind date in 1963. Petite and blond, she was working at a credit bureau after high school.
“We met in April and married that August,” he said. “I don’t know what I’d have become if I hadn’t met her. She had a lot of class, a lot of grace. She was a beautiful woman.”
Sharon Engberg was born in Albany, Calif., on July 28, 1943. Her parents, Lester and Dorothy Engberg, moved their family to North Dakota before coming to Marysville in the late 1950s.
John Gaffney’s work took the young family to Indiana, but Sharon eventually wanted to come home, which they did in 1981.
Sharon began working as a teaching aide before being bitten by the computer bug. “She took courses at Everett Community College,” John Gaffney said. “Technology came along, and she just took off.”
Tom Thorleifson, now a teacher in Granite Falls, began teaching at Everett’s Eisenhower Middle School in 1982.
“Sharon was one of the first people I knew in the district who knew what a computer was and how it was to be used. I taught math. Computers were just coming into the school. We had four Apple IIe’s. She helped get them set up,” Thorleifson said.
“It was, wow, here’s a person who knows a lot about computers, but is a normal person,” he said. Back then, he added, computer expertise didn’t often go hand in hand with an ability to explain.
“She was kind, understanding and perceptive of human nature. She was a wonderful person,” Thorleifson said.
“Everyone she met mattered to Mom,” said Gaffney’s daughter, Susan Cranwell.
When her mother was first diagnosed with cancer, Cranwell said, “we sat on the beach and talked about how we’re going to get through this. She was determined not to wallow in this.”
Sharon Gaffney chose to participate in a clinical trial of a new cancer medication through Seattle-based Cell Therapeutics Inc.
Cranwell often accompanied her mother to chemotherapy treatments in Seattle. “She just inspired people,” Cranwell said. “After she’d have her treatment, we’d go to 13 Coins (restaurant) and have a Reuben sandwich and a glass of wine.”
At Gaffney’s memorial service last week, a family friend read written memories from each of her children. They had common themes.
“Our mother taught by example,” Mike Gaffney wrote. “She was competent and independent. She taught us how to be valuable in our communities. And when she’d see her grandchildren, she’d simply beam.”
“My mom always liked lighthouses. She was a beacon of light to others,” wrote Jay Gaffney.
“At the end of every day, she’d always say, ‘Who loves you?’” wrote Cranwell.
In the memories they shared, each of Gaffney’s children remembered the right answer: “You do.”
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@ heraldnet.com.
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