Phyllis Ceratto Evans, age 97, passed away on January 14, 2024 in Bellingham, Washington. She was born on June 17, 1926, in Tacoma, Washington. Her parents were George and Mildred Ceratto. Phyllis proudly told anyone and everyone she had grown up in Tacoma in the same neighborhood where her mother had grown up and always spoke of enjoying going to baseball games as a child with her grandfather. Phyllis’s booming laugh could always be heard in crowded rooms because she was usually having fun and loved talking to anyone and everyone. Phyllis attended Bryant Elementary in Tacoma and Stadium High School in Tacoma and graduated from St. Alphonsus Parish School in Seattle.
After Phyllis got married, she moved to Moclips, Washington where they lived by the beach and her 3 youngest children attended school. They moved to Hoquiam where she was divorced and raised her children on her own until marrying Bob J. Evans in 1964. They bought a home in Aberdeen and had one more child. Phyllis lived and worked in Aberdeen for 20 plus years. Since her parents owned restaurants, Phyllis worked in the food service industry for many years then became a teacher’s aide in the early ‘70s.
Phyllis found her calling in teaching children to read and was a teacher aide in the Aberdeen School District and in the late 1980s, after her husband’s death, she moved to Bainbridge Island and worked at the Montessori Country School.
In her free time, Phyllis enjoyed hiking and was an avid fiber artist. She embarked on solo hikes in Switzerland and around Mt. Blanc and the 93-mile Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainier. Also she traversed the Olympic Mountains twice with her son, Wally, via both the Low and High Divide routes. Phyllis saw so much beauty in her hikes that she combined her love for nature with her passion for sewing, by creating beautiful fiber collages of nature and mountain scenes using antique silk kimono fabric. Her artwork was exhibited in various galleries and corporate displays and she sold many pieces of her art over the years. In 2010 Phyllis left the peninsula and moved to Bellingham to a fun, senior community, to be closer to her youngest grandchildren. Phyllis always had a love for travel and besides years of camping, her travels included several visits to Northern Italy to visit relatives, and also trips to Machu Pichu, a Caribbean Cruise and she travelled to Minnesota and Nova Scotia for genealogy research. She embarked on day or overnight bus trips once she moved to Bellingham, because she still loved to travel.
Phyllis is survived by her four children: William (Bill) Hampton, Wally Hampton (and wife Wendy), Janice Hampton, and Lita DeBoer (and husband Walter), along with 10 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband, Bob Evans, her granddaughter Kandace Hampton Nickerson, and her brother Robert Ceratto.
Phyllis requested that there be no memorial service. In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to any dementia or memory care research in her honor.
