Florence Myrtle Sands

Florence O. Sands September 2, 1916 – October 1, 2011 Florence Myrtle Otteson Sands passed away October 1, 2011 at the age of 95, at her home in Tacoma. She is survived by her two daughters, Norma Jean Sands and Linnea C. Sands who were with her at the time. She is also survived by her granddaughter Jessica E. Sands, sister-in-law Virginia Sands, niece Terrie Sands Kahl and her husband Mike and children Aaron and Jordan, and cousin Nancy Sweeney and her husband Tom and children John and Michael. Florence was born to Julia Bonnerup and Henry Otteson on September 2, 1916 on a farm in North Dakota. The family moved to a farm in Centralia, Washington when she was young. She graduated from Centralia High and was valedictorian of her high school class and, thereby, received free tuition at local community college. After two years there, she went to University of Washington and graduated in 1938 with a degree in Chemistry. She was one of the first women who went to sea on the MS CATALYST, the UW oceanographic vessel. Prior to and during WWII she worked as a food chemist, first in Wenatchee and then in Seattle. She met Walter Sands first at the Oceanography Labs at the University of Washington while she was a student taking chemical oceanography classes and he was a researcher with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. She next met him on the ski slopes, so the story goes, he with head in the snow and skis in the air. During the war, she was a volunteer with the ski patrol looking for foreign activity from the sky over the Olympic National Park. With a group of friends, she climbed Mt Rainier and skied down. In 1943, Walter took a short leave of absence from Navy sea duty and they were married at his grandparent’s home in Fern Hill. Walter had a career in the Navy and Florence followed him from coast to coast and to England when he had a tour of duty there. When he retired from the Navy in Seattle and their two daughters were in high school she took a job at the Seattle Science Center teaching school children to view and understand mathematics in innovative ways and have fun at the same time. When they were both retired from their second careers, they renovated the old family home in Fern Hill (south Tacoma) and moved there. Walter predeceased Florence by two years. They were happily married for 66 years.