Cherish the time you spend with your loved ones. Time is the most precious thing we have here on earth. Don’t postpone your pleasures.

Lynn Wolfe, Dec 2000

Lynn Marie Loomis Wolfe passed away Saturday, July 27, 2024 peacefully at home in the arms of her loving daughters, Alisa and Jolie. She was 78. Her warmth, loving smile, paintings, and perpetual habit of correcting bad grammar will be sorely missed.

Lynn was born on August 28, 1945 in St. Paul, Minnesota. The only daughter of George Williamand Audrey Loomis, both accomplished opera singers, Lynn showed her creative side at 5 years old when she began avidly drawing pictures. She was an ardent reader, and soon, she would become quite the intellectual. She was often playfully challenged by her father, an architect by trade, at the dinner table. Growing up, Lynn enjoyed badminton with her brother Gregry in the backyard, playing duets on the piano with her mother, and simply adored collecting ceramic horses. She had shelves full of them, all kinds, shapes and colors. Lynn also enjoyed embroidering flowers and writing creatively. At 10 years old, she won a whole $1 prize in a St. Paul essay contest in 1955 entitled, “What My Mother Means to Me.”  She also won a Schwinn bicycle in 1955 for creating the name “Stillicious” in a name-picking contest for a brown cow drink. Yes, creativity was her bag.A creative streak was squarely embedded in Lynn by the time her father got a job transfer from St. Paul to Tacoma, Washington in 1960.

Her family moved from St. Paul to Tacoma, Washington in 1960 due to her father’s job transfer. Lynn excelled at Wilson High School both creatively and academically. Her favorite class was art (naturally), but she also found herself a math whiz, mastering the art of logic and symmetry. She got her high school diploma at only 16 years old, further proving her brain was much bigger than that of the average Joe. The University of Puget Sound was not far from the family home, so she began her post-secondary education there. She began as an art major but changed it to math as she didn’t think anyone would hire her as an art teacher. Art to math? But of course! That big brain of hers. She was perfectly comfortable-and capable-of exercising either side of her brain. And she would go on to balance both sides of that brain of hers in fabulous ways through the  course of her lifetime.

Lynn met the love of her life, Tom Wolfe, in college. Funny enough, she said that he had offended her in the beginning. But of course, if a woman gets a rise from a man, that has to be special. How else could a strong, creative woman otherwise be overcome with emotion about a tall, handsome, former military man she met at school? They fell in love, and she was ready to marry Tom on August 6, 1965, just after she began her career as a computer programmer.  Lynn was 19 years old. The happy couple welcomed their first born child, Alisa Marie in December, 1968, and their second child, Jolie, in November, 1970. The proud parents moved to Anchorage, Alaska in 1972 with Tom’s job transfer, and looked forward to providing a decent, upper-middle class lifestyle for themselves and their girls.

The family lived in midtown Anchorage (Spenard) on 42nd Street for eight years. Lynn dreamed of a three-story house for her family, complete with an art studio for her to work in. She drew up her ideas, and her ideas became her design for a house on the hill. They bought a lot, hired an architect, and the Wolfe family dream home was built on the hillside of Anchorage near the Chugach foothills. Lynn’s beautiful house on Kasilof included a modern kitchen, formal dining room, an office-library for Tom, an art studio and east-facing windowed atrium for her, a lovely guest room for relatives, a downstairs space and shared bathroom for her girls, and spectacular views of the city and Cook Inlet from the large front windows of the living room.

Thank you for reigniting my spark and inspiring me to get back into art… how you talked about art just warmed my heart and inspired me.                          – Ali Woodyard, Prestige Riverwood

Lynn decorated her space the way a smart, dual-operating left-brain/right-brain person would, She filled her space with beautiful things that she would acquire from her travels, like ceramic dressed dolls inside cases from Japan, a festive lamp from Mexico, German steins, and lots of matchbooks (back when that was a thing in the ‘70s-80s).  She loved her artsy light blue, velvety wingback chairs and flower-patterned furniture. Alongside the art, she also kept a 6” thick unabridged dictionary on a library pedestal, which also supported National Geographic magazines (admittedly Tom’s), and crossword puzzles (definitely Lynn’s). Spending time in her studio, Lynn would alternate between painting and building fine miniature Victorian furniture for her beautiful Victorian miniature house. She carefully painted the interior, installed miniature electric lights, wallpaper, flooring, and Victorian furniture. That project brought a little joy to everyone who was lucky enough to see it in all its splendor.

Lynn worked hard to provide for her family. As a data programmer in the old days, she had a computer at her home from which she could work if there were problems at work. That was in the 1980s, when no one was “connected” to the internet like she was. Sometimes she would be called to work at 3 a.m. She never complained about her work, and despite her long days, Lynn always looked forward to coming home, making dinner, and hugging her girls. For 37 years she worked in DP (data processing), what they now call IT. Her career titles included vice president of Alaska National Bank of the North, DP Supervisor, and Senior IT Manager. She truly blazed a trail for women in a man’s world, and would truly inspire her girls, Alisa and Jolie, to be strong, smart women.

Alisa eventually moved to Oregon for school and Jolie moved out on her own. After a few years of being empty nesters in the family dream home, Tom and Lynn decided to move to Oregon in the early 90s for a warmer climate. Their love of their girls was always obvious, having taken out personalized licensed plates “AJ Mom” and “AJ Dad.” Lynn took a job at Schnitzer Steel, and enjoyed taking trips to the beach with Tom and spending time with her daughter Jolie while Alisa lived in Chicago. In 1995, Lynn suffered a stroke, which caused her to lose the functionality of her left hand. But she didn’t let that get the best of her. Tom made sure she was well taken care of.

Tragedy struck the following year. Lynn’s mother Audrey passed away in 1996, followed by her father George William in 1998. Shortly thereafter, Lynn was diagnosed with lupus, and discovered she had a brain aneurysm to boot. If that wasn’t bad enough, the biggest blow had yet to come. In 1999, when her beloved Tom was diagnosed with cancer. The cancer shrunk with chemo, so they traveled to Spain in 1999 to get in the most time they could. However in April, 2000, they had to cut their Tahiti cruise short when Tom’s cancer returned with a vengeance. The love of her life passed away in June, 2000. He was only 60 years old. Lynn had lost her mother, father, and husband in four short years. A mighty mental mountain of grief to climb. Yet she persevered.

Lynn sold her house in Portland as it held too many memories of Tom. She threw herself into painting, and then at age 57, she retired early, to be a full-time painter. She found herself in a few rental houses in Portland, then moved to Seattle for a short time to be closer to her newly married daughter Alisa. In Seattle, Lynn enjoyed taking weekly painting and ceramics classes. She was truly happy to be out of the 8-to-5 grind, feeling free to do whatever she wanted, on her own schedule. She could paint, read, play computer games, watch her game shows, and do her crossword puzzles, whenever she wanted. Her sense of humor came out in the paintings she created, and always enjoyed a challenge.

Lynn taught me how to be a more mature, reasonable, person with some degree of common sense…I always loved her advice; a wonderful, caring friend that I will miss dearly.

– Diane Tyhurst, close friend

In 2004, Alisa and her husband Kevin decided to move back to Portland, and Lynn followed shortly thereafter. Soon she would have two married daughters, with Jolie marrying her long time boyfriend Brian Aune. She was very happy to be near both of her daughters, and their spouses. Two years later, Lynn became a grandmother with the birth of her first grandson, Jaden, and again in 2009 with the birth of her second grandson, Colby. Lynn bought a lovely two-bedroom house in King City in 2011, a place she truly adored. She joined the art club and ceramics club, and planted a beautiful garden in her backyard, full of roses, clematis, and tulips. She became president of the King City Artists Guild, and showed her paintings at Concordia University, Emeritus at Oswego Springs, and even the Audubon Society. Her family was nearby, and she was never far from supportive friends. She loved to travel, going on beach trips with Jolie, visiting Costa Rica on a solo trip, and a memorable family getaway to Disneyland Orlando with Alisa’s family in 2018.

In January of 2019, disaster struck. Lynn had a terrible fall in her bedroom that broke her back. We call it “the fall” as it affected everything in her life from that moment forward. It permanently robbed her from the style of independent living to which she had become accustomed, and relied on a wheelchair to move around. After months in rehab, she moved from her beloved house in King City to assisted living, where others could care for her, make her meals, and do her laundry. After a few years, she decided to move to Salem so she could be closer to her daughter Jolie and Brian.

Despite the fall and lifestyle shift, she continued to paint and spend time with her family, who absolutely doted on her. She became new friends with her neighbors while keeping in touch with old friends. She created Christmas cards every year to give updates to her loved ones on her trials and tribulations. She had high hopes to one day walk again, but years of muscle atrophy from not being able to walk forced her to become accustomed to scooting around in her wheelchair. She kept her brain as active as she could, participating (and of course winning) Wheel of Fortune contests with at her assisted living center. But she was struggling with her back pain. In 2022, her doctor notified her that her heart was failing. Despite doing everything right, her body just wouldn’t cooperate.

She left us to join the love of her life, forever on painted wings. She will be missed.

~ In lieu of flowers and trees, Lynn would have preferred a contribution to Oregon Humane Society .~