Anita Grace Harris Hawkins

Anita Grace passed into heaven’s glory on Monday, June 17, 2024 in Chehalis, Washington at age 95.  A memorial service will be held at Oakville United Methodist Church in Oakville, Washington on August 9, 2024 at 2:00 pm.

Anita was born in Tenino, Washington to James Orvin Harris and Nancy Grace Evans Harris (both deceased). She grew up in Oakville, Washington along with siblings Helen and James.  After graduating from high school in Oakville, Anita earned an associate degree from Centralia Community College (where she met her future husband, Robert). She then continued her education at the University of Washington. 

In 1949, Anita married Robert James Hawkins of Centralia (born in Tono, Washington).  They moved into student housing at the University of Washington while Robert continued his education in civil engineering.  In the fall of 1950, they were joined by Nancy Grace. From then until 1963, more children joined the family:  Charles Bruce, Robert James, jr., James Archie, Elizabeth Anne, Jane Marie, Richard Edward, and Virginia Joyce.

After the birth of James Archie, Anita returned to the University of Washington and completed her degree in Speech Pathology.  With the number of children in the household, she never worked in the field.  However, once the last of the children were in middle school/junior high school, she worked part time in various fabric stores and then full time in the Experimental Education Unit at the University of Washington for many years.  At the unit, she was Supervisor of Food Preparation Instruction and coordinated the kitchen while training developmentally disabled young people in the basics of shopping and cooking.

However, that did not mean that she was “just a housewife”.  Anita occupied her time making puppets and presenting puppet shows, being a long time campfire and cub scout leader, a certified master gardener, canning fruit, making jams, a member of more book clubs than one could count, classes in investments (and started buying and following stocks regularly into her 80s), stained glass, genealogy, etc., active in political campaigns, a member of the League of Women Voters, and the Association of University Women.  And that was just in Seattle!

Several years after Robert’s death in 1981, Anita moved back to Oakville.  She bought a home and acreage from her Aunt Mary Townsend, a direct descendant of George Harris who built the house in 1896.  Anita loved living in Oakville and once again set about being a force in the community.  She became active in the Oakville United Methodist Church, attending regularly and fully participating in the life of the church until months before her death.  Anita wrote a gardening column for the “Oakville Cruiser” newspaper.  She joined several quilt guilds and made numerous quilts for charities, for sale (and the money given to the church), as well as quilts to be given away to family and friends.  She, along with several partners, opened the Golden Acorn in downtown Oakville.    The Golden Acorn was a “fancy storefront garage sale” in the words of her children.  It provided her with an excuse to garage sale all over Lewis, Grays’ Harbor, and Thurston counties.  Her pride and joy, however, was her work with the Friends of the Library – Oakville. Her Great-Grandmother and Grandmother started a free lending library based in the George Harris house not long after it was built.  They collected books from everyone, fiction and non-fiction, and created a system to circulate those books in the greater Oakville area.  Anita came up with the idea to sell Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls to benefit the modern Oakville Library.  She started work making dolls, recruited friends to help, and a fundraiser was born.  Over the years, hundreds of dolls were sold with all proceeds benefiting the library. Traditional dolls, Seahawks dolls, wedding dressed dolls, grandparent dolls and college fan dolls across the country came from her sewing room workshop.  Dolls would get their hand sewn hair put on during meetings.  They’d get “stuffed” while she chatted with family. When she could no longer make the dolls, she still supported the library by being one of their best customers, reading a book or more a day.  At the time of her death, she had 8 books by her reading chair and another dozen in transit from various branches of the Timberland Library system.

Oh, the travel!  Have passport and a train, bus, boat, car or plane and Anita was off!  Travel to see her children in the various parts of the world where they were living. Organized tours to Peru (a favorite place), Turkey, Israel, Greece, Egypt, Mexico, Costa Rico, France, England, and even floating the Amazon River.

She was a force.  She saw the injustice of the treatment of the Chehalis Tribal members at an early age.  She celebrated the success that the Tribe is achieving now.  When it became an option in the Seattle School system, her children were bussed voluntarily from their predominately white schools to predominately black schools.  It pained her heart to know that those great goals of integration have not been met yet. LGBTQ+, all shades of skin colors, all nationalities were welcome in her life.  The more people she knew, the happier she was.

Anita was preceded in death by her husband Robert, son Robert Jr., and sister Helen Engle.   She is survived by her brother James Harris of Portland, Oregon and seven children, Nancy (Denny) McAfee, Charles (Suzanne) Hawkins, James Archie Hawkins, Elizabeth Hawkins, Jane Marie (Joel) Brillhart, Richard Hawkins, Virginia (David) Gerde.  She was blessed with 17 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren along with numerous nieces and nephews.

Celebrate her life! She had a great run.  She enjoyed life fully.  Live your life following her example of service and joy.

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