Doris “Jeanne” Weese, 88, a longtime Puyallup and Lacey resident who proudly hailed from Humptulips, Washington, passed away in July, leaving loving memories of a dynamic woman, wife, mother, sister, aunt, grandmother, great-grandmother and loyal friend.

Make that loving “dynamo.” Jeanne embraced life with a pioneer intrepidness honed in rural Humptulips, a then one-shop town of 100 (mostly her relatives) at Hwy 101’s fork to Pacific beaches. In 1903, Jeanne’s grandmother Martha Groseclose, mother to-be Margaret and her 12 siblings arrived from Idaho by covered wagon. When Jeanne was 14, her father, John Brim, was killed in a logging accident. Suddenly, her mom, brothers (Ed and Tom) and sisters (Fae and Barbara) had to fend for themselves on a 31-acre homestead along the river.

That soulful bond kept Humptulips forever at her core.

Jeanne graduated from Quinault High School in 1952 with best friends Karen Wold, Barbara and Georgie Fairchild, Ron Warren and Donald Olson. She played the violin, four years of high school basketball, and was a song queen and band majorette. She never lost her baton twirl or typewriter prowess, winning the school’s typing speed contest.

That fall Jeanne Brim married Moclips’ Merle Weese, who was deployed to the Philippines three months later. To see him off, his 18-year-old wife embarked on the trip of her life, a solo, cross-country train to Boston. Reunited three years later, baby in tow, they moved to Tacoma then to a five-acre Edgewood (Puyallup) farm, where they settled for over 40 years. Their boys Doug and Marv attended Hilltop Elementary, Edgemont Junior High and Puyallup High School when they weren’t hosting neighborhood kids at their veritable Olympics sports complex (“Weese’s Wanch”) replete with football goalposts, baseball diamond, lighted basketball court, horses, cows, sheep, barns and corrals.

Jeanne was the family’s emotional backbone. Her siren of belief and encouragement fed her boys as surely as the family breakfast she prepared every morning. Meanwhile, she tackled more interests than Hobby Lobby. She hunted antiques, was a whirlwind refinisher, upholsterer, seamstress, knitter, quilter, canner, yard worker and keeper of scrapbooks, all in support of her boys. Early on she had worked as a telephone operator in Aberdeen and clerk at Peoples Department store in Tacoma. After the boys left home, she drove a small truck checking retail displays for Alaska Fish Fertilizer, a part-time job she loved.

Jeanne was a good listener, quick to laugh, wore her feelings on her sleeve, and was never shy sharing them. She loved to dance the jitterbug (how she met Merle) and carried on decades-long flirtations with boyfriends Frank Sinatra, Sam Elliott and Tom Selleck. She loved cars, notably her VW and Honda del Sol convertibles, Honda Element and 1951 Austin. Favorites included being organized, all things chocolate, Chinese noodles, bacon cheeseburgers, Spearmint chewing gum, President John Kennedy (she pulled the boys out of school to see him at Cheney Stadium in September 1963), any movie the family watched together, and her beloved grandchildren Julia and Paul. She routinely cracked up with best friends like Marilyn Burnett, Mary Van Wart and Patty Erkle.

She is survived by sons Doug (and Kimera) and Marv (and Cristie) Weese; grandchildren Julia (and Kyle) Nelson and Paul (and Haylie) Weese; great-grandchildren Palmer (Nelson) and Vinny (Weese); sister Barb (and Donald) Olson, nephew Duane (and Lisa) Olson; nieces Tanni (and Bobby) Weaver and Wendy (and David) Philippi, and many more friends and family.

A private memorial for Jeanne and Merle Weese is being held Nov. 13. They are wall-interred together at Woodbine Cemetery in Puyallup.