David Rutledge

David Rutledge, beloved husband and father, passed away on June 19, 2019. He is survived by his wife of 38 years, Amy, and their children, Dana, Ellen, Annagrace, Cedar, and Benn. He was born on December 31, 1946, in Lincoln, Nebraska, to Don and Beth (Van Druff) Rutledge. His family moved to Weeping Water, where, even though he was a child, David was impressed by his grandfather’s collection of Indian arrowheads. Grandpa Glen Rutledge walked in fields each spring where the freshly plowed earth exposed the artifacts. He then mounted the arrowheads on a large piece of plywood, which he had hung on his living room wall. Glen was displaying his own Native American heritage. The family moved again. This time to Seward. After graduating from Seward High School in Seward, Nebraska, in 1965, he attended the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. He got his B.A. in Liberal Arts in January1970. After working for a few years as a psychiatric aide, and then a teaching assistant, he went back and got his Master’s of Science in Developmental Psychology from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln in 1975. David relocated to Seattle (1975-1977) and worked as a teaching assistant at the University of Washington, Seattle, in the Department of Educational Psychology, where he trained in counseling. Then further travels took him to The Ocean Park Project in Venice, California, where he taught from 1977 to 1979. For a few months in 1979, he lived in Port Orford, Oregon, where he managed an apartment building and wrote grants. During this time, David thought about what he wanted to do with his life and felt the strong memory of his grandfather’s display of arrowheads. The Native American heritage was not only his grandfather’s, but his as well. Then David made the move to San Francisco, California, in February 1980, where he met Amy. They married in October 1980. He attended UC Berkeley from 1981 to 1987 and was the first in his class to graduate with his Ph.D. in Psychology. He wrote his dissertation on an interpretation of the Oglala Sioux Emergence Myth with its implications in psychotherapy. David and Amy had their first two children, Dana and Ellen. All in 1987, the family of four moved from Berkeley to Gold Beach, Oregon, then to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for David to work on post-doctoral research. At the University of North Carolina, David worked with Dr. James L. Peacock in the Anthropology Department, doing more research into the Native Culture of North America. In 1988, the family moved back out West. This time the destination was Olympia, Washington, where David simultaneously continued his post-doctoral research and began his teaching career at The Evergreen State College. The next year, 1989, they had another child, Annagrace, and bought a house. Two years later, the house was too small and they relocated to a larger home with some acreage for homeschooling and two more children, Cedar and Benn. Homeschooling was something David wanted for his children so they could learn at their own pace and have each person’s interests encouraged. He also bought tapes and books of Native American stories to share with his children. David worked as faculty at The Evergreen State College (TESC) from 1988 to 2012. He taught many different courses with a number of different faculty, as is the standard at TESC. For many years, he taught in Native American Studies, where students used the lifestyle of Native Culture as the way of learning. He spent two years as faculty in the Master’s in Teaching course, training future teachers. He taught psychology courses. He taught math. And he even taught a summer school course for a number of years where students prepared to hike and camp for two weeks around the Wonderland Trail at the base of Mount Rainier. He loved teaching. Over 24 years at TESC, he had nearly 2,000 students. It was the career he worked so hard to have. He retired at the age of 65 in 2012 and spent time reading, his favorite pastime. He loved traveling around Washington State, where there are beaches and mountains. He traveled with his family and went to San Francisco and Phoenix as well. David was also a part time consultant to a couple of local counselors, advising one how to state the intent of the type of counseling she would do in her new career, and to the other gave insight on how to treat clients who were a challenge for him, as David had a different perspective from his in-depth knowledge of Sigmund Freud’s and Carl Jung’s theories and principles. Throughout his adult life, David ran for exercise. He loved the West Coast for less extreme weather than the Nebraska weather he grew up in. The Pacific Northwest was his favorite place. “Rain,” he explained about enjoying the wet winters, “doesn’t need to be shoveled.” David is survived by his wife, Amy Rutledge; and children, Dana Rutledge, Ellen Rutledge, Annagrace Rutledge, Cedar Rutledge, and Benn Rutledge. To anyone who would like to share memories of David, know his family would appreciate them. Please leave your condolences or share memories and photos on the Tribute Wall to the left.