February 16, 1916 - November 20, 2007
Leo J. Notenboom
Leonardus Joannes Notenboom, 91, passed away on November 20th, 2007.
Preceded in death by his wife, Elisabeth G. Notenboom.
Born in the Netherlands he immigrated to Canada in 1951 and then the U.S. in
1960, residing most of his life in Kirkland, Washington.
Survivors include his son and daughter-in-law, Leo A. and Kathy
Notenboom.
Memorial services will be Saturday, January 12th, 2008 at
11AM at Holy Family Catholic Church, Kirkland, Washington.
In lieu of flowers, please consider a memorial gift to The
Providence Marianwood Foundation.
A number of people have expressed sadness at my father's passing.
And yes, it is definitely sad to lose your father at any age.
But this is a case worthy also of happiness and celebration. My father lead
a rich, long life. He died as peacefully as we could have hoped for, and in the
company of loved ones.
I choose to celebrate his life. I choose to feel a deep gratitude for the
gifts I've received from him. I choose to remember not only most the recent
years but the years he truly was my father and the stories of what came
before.
I choose to be happy and thankful.
•
My father was born in 1916 on a small farm in a rural part of Holland. He
had both a brother and a sister. His father passed away at an early age.
His first job? I'm told he was an assistant in a women's shoe store in the
city of Utrecht. Not at all what I would have expected.
While he completed only the equivalent of grade school, he learned a trade
and became a machinist. It was as a machinist at a machine shop in the town of
Breukelen that he would go to a nearby cafe, and where he met my mother, one of the cafe owner's
daughters.
He became foreman at that machine shop, at least, as I understand it, until
World War II broke out. He and my mother delayed any plans they might have had
until after the war.
During the war my father was in the Dutch army, teaching, among other
things, and for lack of a better term, motorcycle based combat: things like
firing weapons while riding using your motorcycle as a shield.
At one point, he and his brother Jan were captured by the Germans occupying
Holland. Seeing an opportunity, they took it; they could die trying to escape,
or they could face certain death by remaining prisoners. They ran like hell and
found freedom once again.
More than a machinist, my father was an engineer. Even before leaving
Holland he and his brother worked on very early designs for something we take
for granted today here and in Holland: windmills to generate power. Not the
classic and picturesque Dutch windmills, but aerodynamic mills that even today
wouldn't seem that out of place anywhere.
After the war in 1947 my father and mother married. Four years later they
found themselves immigrating to Canada. The details are hazy; whether it be a
dispute with the Dutch government, or a business deal gone bad, heading to
Canada was their answer. The S.S.Washington took them to Halifax landing March
1, 1951. Their first residence was Calgary, where my father discovered his
bitter dislike for the bitter cold. Not long after they found Victoria, British
Columbia.
My parents wanted six children, and I was the only result in 1957. On
reflection, I'm fairly certain that six was really my mother's idea, because my
father never did seem all that comfortable around children. I think six would
have been a challenge for him, to put it mildly.
In 1960, on my third birthday, we immigrated to the United States. A vague
fragment of a story is that immigration was allowed or at least made easier for
certain occupations: preacher and organist. When he couldn't find work as a
machinist my dad had many and varied jobs including vacuum cleaner salesman,
insurance salesman and in fact he had been an organ salesman. Organist wasn't
much of a stretch, since he was certainly no preacher.
Nine months in Missoula reminded my father of that whole distaste for cold
thing, and as a result, after a brief return to Victoria, we ended up in
Kirkland. A job as a machinist and he was once again practicing his true
trade.
If you've ever looked closely at my father's nose, you'll note a small
divot, for lack of a better word. That, and the loss of hearing in one ear, was
the result of an accident at work. While running a metal lathe at high speed
the chunk of steel he was working on came loose and flew into his face. I still
have memories of the late night ride to the hospital even though I was perhaps
4 or 5 at the time.
Not long after he left hands-on machine shop work to form a small company
with a business partner where he designed among other things advanced
hydraulics, resulting in a patent or two. The result was used in equipment that
they sold to Boeing. For many years of 747 construction it was my father's
hydraulic lifts that got assembly men up to the underside of jumbo-jet
wings.
Fortunes turned and he found himself back as a machinist at Rocket Research
in Redmond. Even there there's a legacy since it's very possible that some of
my dad's work is far, far out in space: components for some of NASA's space
probes were manufactured there during his tenure.
While working at Rocket Research my father's entrepreneurial side was also
blossoming. In his spare time he was working up a manufacturing and design
consulting practice that would last him the rest of his career. Drafting boards
and a small machine shop filled the lower floor of our home on Kirkland's Rose
Hill. For the better part of perhaps 15 years he worked at home keeping his
mind active, and staying out of my mother's hair.
The earliest sign I can really point to of his impending Alzheimer's was his
work on his own project which was quite literally a perpetual motion machine.
Convinced in many ways that formal education limited the perspectives of others
(not too far a leap, I must say), he rejected any objections to the idea. It
was his last project as he slowly realized that he was no longer able to safely
operate the machinery required for his task.
His last years at home were peaceful, though naturally frustrating for my
mother. She took care of him until a few months before her death in 2003. After
falling and breaking his hip, he received excellent care at Providence
Marianwood, a long term care facility until his death.
•
I get much from my father ... like him, I'm an engineer. Like I suspect he
really felt, I didn't want six children. And like him I love my coffee.
He valued work and purpose, and that's something I hope I learned from him.
He told me on more than one occasion that he didn't really care what I became;
even if I was to become a ditch digger, as long as I was the best damn ditch
digger I could be, he would be happy.
He loved my mother more than I think she understood or could accept. Though
it was a quiet devotion, it was a strong one that he spoke of to me on several
occasions. In many ways it was a true blessing that his Alzheimer's had
progressed as far as it has by the time she passed. He would have been
miserable had he known. In fact on three separate occasions he did realize, and
he was miserable. Thankfully he would wake up the next day blissfully, and
thankfully, unaware once again.
It was my mother that wanted me to go to college. My dad wanted me to follow
in his footsteps and learn a trade. In a way I did both. I know that in the
end, while my father never really understood what it was I did for a living, he
appreciated its magnitude and understood its relationship at least to the
engineering mind. I know he was proud, and I'm grateful he was able to see and
understand at least that much.
My father is survived ... well, by me. He outlived his siblings and all of
his contemporaries. He was the last of his generation in my family.
- Leo A. Notenboom
November 24, 2007
Memories
My father, his brother Jan, and his sister Stien. c1925
My dad as foreman in a machine shop, late 1930's.
My mom & dad in 1942.
My mom with 'Beertje' in early 1950's.
Group photo outside my grandparent's cafe.
Grada, my dad, my mom, ??, Truus, Henk De Lange, Ada Wammes, Rie, Door De
Lange, ? Vendrig
My mother's father and mother in the foreground.
November 27, 1947
A picnic on the way to Banff, from Calgary, I believe.
In the "Peanut Butter
Car", so named by a friend for its color.
In Victoria, B.C. working as a machinist.
1957
Joe Pfieffer, my dad's best friend for many years, and my dad at my
wedding.
1987 - 40th Wedding Anniversary
Me visiting my dad in 2003 (with Vera on my lap)
Eulogy
First, thank you for being here. I know many of you didn't really know my
father, and your being here today means a lot to both Kathy and myself.
I've written at length about my father on a memorial web page that I hope
you all have a chance to read sometime. I put up both pictures and a brief
chronicle of his life.
One of the things I said there, and something I'll reiterate here, is that
while losing my father has of course been a very sad and significant event in
my life, I'm choosing not to grieve his departure as much as celebrate his
life.
My father lead a rich, long life. It was a full life. 91 years and then
some. He died as peacefully as we could have hoped for, and in the company of
loved ones.
I choose to feel a deep gratitude for the gifts I've received from him. I
choose to remember not only most the recent years but the years he truly was my
father and the stories of what came before.
Some brief themes to those 91 years:
-
A farm boy.
-
A machinist.
-
Meeting my mother at a nearby café.
-
The Dutch Army in World War II.
-
Training motorcycle marksmanship.
-
Being captured by the Nazis ... and escaping.
-
1947: A husband.
-
1952: Packing up and moving to another continent.
-
An engineer.
-
A salesman.
-
1957: A father.
-
An entrepreneur.
-
A coffee drinker.
-
Even a philosopher at times.
-
An example and an inspiration.
My father was or experienced all those things and much more over the course
of his life.
In many ways, due to his Alzheimer's, I've been slowly losing, an as a
result slowly grieving, my father for many years. I'm particularly grateful for
the care he received during his final years and that they were as comfortable
and as peaceful as they were.
One of the down sides to living a long life, as my father did, is outliving
your contemporaries. My dad outlived every one of them - his brother and
sister, my mother, his friends and business partners. He outlasted every one of
my aunts and uncles from both sides of my family - he was, for me, the last of
his generation.
Of course he will be missed.
But he is a part of me, and he will be honored and remembered.
- Leo A. Notenboom
January 12, 2008
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