Etna Pearl "Granny" Henderson passed away peacefully in a memory care facility in Yelm, Wash., on Dec. 10, 2012.
She was born on March 18, 1922, in Turney, Texas, to Benjamin Wesley and Fannie Scott Baker. She was the 11th of 14 children and the youngest girl. She grew up in and around Turney and attended school there. Her father was a share crop farmer so the family moved around Texas and Louisiana, but lived mostly in East Texas.
Her family was living in Louisiana when she met and married S.L. Henderson on March 15, 1941. They had three sons and lived at various times in Texas, Louisiana and Oregon, finally settling in 1955 in Oregon, where S.L. retired from Weyerhaeuser Co. in the late 1970s.
In 1982, they moved back to Texas and lived there until 2009, when she sold her house and moved back to Bly, Ore. Her husband preceded her in death in October of 1995. She had spent the last five winters in Olympia, Wash., with her son Jerry and family, and her son Larry, moving back to Bly for the summers.
She lovingly cared for her son Larry, who is mentally handicapped, all his life and, wherever she was, he was there. She sometimes joked that people thought they were a married couple, which he didn't always appreciate!
She worked at the Sycan Store in Bly as a clerk/butcher, as a cook at what is now the Coyote Ridge Cafe, at the former Tikkanen Store in Bly and also for a time at the Weyerhaeuser Co. mill in Bly. She also worked in a factory in Texas assembling toy guns. While she and S.L. lived in Texas after his retirement, she enjoyed growing a large vegetable garden and also began quilting, making many beautiful quilts for family and friends, all hand stitched, and she also enjoyed teaching others to quilt. She was also a good cook and we will miss her dumplings and buttermilk biscuits. She enjoyed holidays, birthdays and Baker family reunions.
Pearl was a member of the Faith Assembly of God Church in Bly and loved her Lord!
She is survived by her son Jerry and wife Diane and her son Larry, all of Olympia; her grandson Scott Henderson of Auburn, Wash., her granddaughter Wendy Nuxoll and husband George, and her great-grandchildren Martin and Teresa Nuxoll, all of Kennewick, Wash.; and many nieces and nephews.
She was preceded in death by her husband S.L., her youngest son Terry, her parents and all of her siblings.