Small Town News

Jean Talley Green

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Jean Talley Green, died at the age of 92 on June 16, 2010, in Shoreline, Wash., from complications related to a stroke.

Born the year of the great influenza pandemic on March 31, 1918, in Burlington, Wash., to Cecil Benjamin Talley and W H. (Fred) Talley, Jean grew up in Spokane, graduating from Lewis and Clark High School in 1936.

After attending Washington State University for a year, where she studied microbiology and pledged the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, Jean graduated from St. Luke's Hospital School of Nursing in 1940.

Jean married James Patrick Green in 1942 and they raised five children in the towns of Bridgeport and Coulee Dam, where Jim worked as an electrical engineer at Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee Dams. A talented pianist, Jean gamely played the old pump organ for Mass at St. Anne's Church in Bridgeport, although her enthusiastic harmonizing periodically impaired her peddling. She was also a prodigious canner and jam-maker and no family member ever had enough of her huckleberry pie.

Always involved in nursing of some kind, she organized first aid classes for young mothers while she was one herself, spent several decades as an RN in the Brewster office practice of Drs. Lamberton, Stout and Schnibbe and was continually responsive to the health care needs of a small town where everyone knew they could "call Jean!" The last 13 years of her nursing career were spent at the Indian Health Service in Nespelem, WA. After her retirement, she became a record-setting fundraiser as the Washington State Co-Chairman for the American Heart Association.

Jean's 59-year marriage to Jim Green was marked by adventure. Over many years of travel, their favorite places included Revelstoke National Park, the Oregon Coast, Yuma, Arizona, and the Methow Valley where they especially loved camping along Early Winters Creek.

An interest in and a compassion for others, a remarkable capacity for hard work and the enviable ability to laugh at herself were constants in her life. She was haunted most by those she couldn't rescue, but she bore pain and the pain of life's unkindness bravely.

Pre-deceased by her husband, James Patrick Green, and by her daughter, Nancy Elizabeth Green, she is survived by her sister, Lenore Talley McIntyre of Seattle; her children and their spouses, James Patrick Green, Jr. and Leonora Citrano Green of Seattle, Carolyn Green Torre and Louis Torre of Princeton, NJ, Shelley Dreyer-Green and Mark Dreyer of Edmonds, and John Kevin Green and Colleen Morris Green of Coulee Dam; by seven grandchildren, Joseph and Catherine Green, Erin and Colin Torre, Jean Marie Dreyer, Andrew Green and his wife, Lorraine Agu-irre Green, Allison Green Beasley and her husband, Jason Beasley; by three great-grandchildren, Mad-elyn, Nicholas and Samantha Beasley and by six nieces and nephews. A memorial service celebrating her life will be held at a future date. Hoffner Fisher & Harvey Seattle, Washington



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© 2011 The Star Grand Coulee, Washington. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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