Murray Arden Anderson

MURRAY ARDEN ANDERSON
January 13, 1928 - April 5, 2018

**UPDATE** A memorial service for Murray and Jean Anderson will be held at the Senior Center in Oak Harbor, Washington on Saturday, August 11, 2018 between the hours of 2 and 6 p.m.

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About a week after his cherished wife of 67 years passed away, Murray Arden Anderson, of Oak Harbor, Wash., joined her on April 5, 2018. He was 90.

Murray, who had Alzheimer's, passed away peacefully at the Regency on Whidbey memory care facility in Oak Harbor, where his wife, Jean Anderson, died eight days earlier. A blind date in college became the love of his life, Jean had heart conditions and dementia.

He leaves a legacy of tireless, and much lauded, advocacy for education and other opportunities for the developmentally disabled. An accomplished writer, Murray also was a dairy farmer, an Army veteran and a leader in many philanthropic and nonprofit groups.

Murray was friendly with everyone, and Jean used to tease him that everywhere they went he always found at least one person he knew.

He was born Jan. 13, 1928, at home on Maylor's Point across the harbor from Oak Harbor to Peter Anderson and Lillian Christenson Anderson. He had a brother, Dallas Anderson, and two sisters, Charmian Lander and the late Eleanor Grovdahl.

Murray's family left Whidbey Island when he was 13 and moved to a farm in Startup, Wash. He was the salutatorian at graduation from Sultan High School in 1946. The first in his family to go to college, he put himself through the Animal Husbandry program at Washington State University in Pullman, Wash.

He worked in dairy barns on campus, worked summers on dairy farms and sold one of his precious few cattle when it became necessary. He received a bachelor's degree in agriculture in 1950.

Near the end of his senior year, he returned from a dairy judging contest a few days before the senior prom. Murray had no date, so he asked his roommate if he knew anyone he could take to the dance. His roommate called the dorm of a friend of his and asked her if she wanted to go. She told him she already had a date, but she'd check with other girls in the dorm.

She yelled across the common room, asking if anyone wanted to go to the senior prom. The only one who said yes was freshman Jean Brattain. She went on a coffee date with this unknown young man, borrowed a dress -- with the school year ending, she had shipped her clothes home to Alaska -- and went to the prom with him.

Murray went to work on a farm on Washington's Olympic Peninsula and corresponded with Jean all summer. In the fall, she attended business school in Seattle so they could spend time together. Their courtship took place on ferries traveling between Seattle and Bremerton.

Murray received an Army draft notice in mid-November, just over four months since the U.S. sent the first ground troops to the Korean War. He married Jean on Nov. 28, 1950, three days before he reported for duty.

When his turn came in the line for appointment to a military station, Murray and the woman assigning recruits to posts realized they knew each other from high school -- yet another instance of Murray coming across someone he knew. She turned the book with the list of duty stations around to face him and asked, "Where would you like to go?"

He chose Fairbanks, Alaska, so his new bride would be near her family, and the couple lived in a converted garage. When temperatures turned frigid, they had to go out every few hours and run a lighter under the fuel line to keep fuel running to their heating stove.

After Murray left the Army in 1952, Murray and Jean leased and/or worked on farms in Skagit and Whatcom counties. They welcomed daughters Edona and Crystal into their lives.

In 1960, when the family lived in Sumas, Wash., their youngest child, Carrie, was born and diagnosed with Down's Syndrome. Murray and Jean were told their only option was to put her in an institution. They visited the only one in the state and were appalled by the conditions there. They decided to keep Carrie at home.

Murray started volunteer work with what was then known as the Washington Association of Retarded Citizens in Skagit County. He was so effective that he was hired as the first executive director of New Leaf in Mount Vernon. He took New Leaf from a new, small program to one of the leaders in the state. The grant written to form New Leaf and that resulted in hiring Murray was described by state officials concerned with workshops as "the best use of a grant they had seen."

New Leaf was the first sheltered workshop to "test the waters with the Javita-Wagner-O'Day Program (JWOD)" and contract with a federal agency to allow a service from the disabled: care of the grounds at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island -- a contract that continues today.


"I'm very committed to creating opportunity for handicapped people that other people have," Murray once said. "We have to guard against accepting our conceptions about what such people can do."

New Leaf began at a time when Washington released about 800 institutionalized adults. The institutional downsizing created opportunities for people with disabilities to integrate into the workforce, and that's where New Leaf stepped in.

By then, schools were forming special-education classes, but children who needed them did not have the skills to be in a classroom. Murray and Jean were instrumental in founding the Skagit Preschool Association for Retarded Children (SPARC), now known as the Skagit Preschool And Resource Center, in Mount Vernon.

Over the years, Murray became increasingly active at local, state and federal levels in what's known as the normalization movement for developmentally disabled children and adults to integrate them into the mainstream in schools, workshops and group homes. He worked as an executive director of many sheltered-workshop organizations in Washington and Alaska.

He also served as the acting director of the Governor's Committee to Hire the Handicapped amd many committees and boards.. Murray's increasing advocacy work for the developmentally disabled also led him to represent Washington at the federal level.

Jean supported and participated in his advocacy as well as raising the couple's daughters and working as a bookkeeper.

After Murray's death, his family found two thick folders that included newspaper clippings; letters of support, congratulation and recommendation; certificates of achievements and awards; and notes of thanks from many teachers for presentations he gave to their classrooms.

Samples of congratulatory quotes from the myriad of letters, including several from Washington governors, are:

"Support of passage of SB3002, which allows state purchasing agents to negotiate directly with sheltered workshops for the purchase of goods and services" -- former Gov. Dan Evans

"Very effective as a member of the Developmental Disabilities Planning Council" -- former Gov. Booth Gardner

"Knowledgeable, hard-working, thorough, forthright and patient"

"Brought a 'human' element to his position."

"Superior quality and obvious understanding of the delicate balance between committees, staff, bureaucracies, politicians, and other interested principles."

"Contributed toward education of Special Education teachers."

"Most objective parent of a handicapped child I have ever encountered."

"Cornerstone of his success is his seemingly endless energy and tremendous community relations, locally and state-wide."

"Many times he was the 'spark.'"

"Boundless dedication to the many needs of the handicapped."

"Aggressively reasonable with an involved energy."

"Balances social concern with business acumen."

"Holds the respect of both bureaucrats and parent volunteers."

"Impressive organization and developmental skills, both in inspiring vision among other and in facilitating their translation of these new visions into concrete attainable objectives."

"I count Murray in the top dozen of those persons who, by the quality of their lives, by the depth and incisiveness of their vision of justice, have served as models and teacher of us all."

"Effective ... successful relationship with disabled people, employers, community leaders, state agency officials and statewide leaders."

Murray had many interests outside of the developmental disabilities community. A brief list:

School board member of the Burlington-Edison School District
President of Toastmasters, Pullman, Wash.
Member of Kiwanis and Rotary
Artificial inseminator for dairy cattle for Curtis Breeding Service and Supervisor at All West Breeders, Burlington
Award-winning judge on WSU dairy judging team
Dairy judge at local fairs
Dairy princess judge
Author of a novel, magazine articles, poetry and short stories.

After their children were grown, the couple's favorite pastime was hiking in the woods and mountains of the Pacific Northwest, often backpacking in and camping overnight. Family legend has it that they hiked every trail on the west side of the Cascades and many on the Olympic Peninsula and in Alaska and Idaho.

Upon retiring, Murray and Jean returned to Whidbey, the island of his birth, and lived in Oak Harbor near family and friends. But retirement didn't slow Murray down.

He was the author of "Breederman: A Novel," which was self-published through three printings with thousands of copies sold across the U.S. A reader review on Amazon.com calls the book "an engaging and intimate view" of what it's like to be a dairyman that "draws you into his world where you feel the ups and downs of farm life."

One of his favorite activities was to give poetry readings, and he did a lot of them. He did many public readings in the Pacific Northwest of his book. Jean used to joke that he had a lot of little old ladies -- she called them his "groupies" -- who followed him around to the readings.

Murray also was a member of the Whidbey Writers Group.


He was heavily involved in Senior Core of Retired Executives (SCORE), consulting with 25 nonprofit agencies; 16 received substantial assistance that sometimes kept the groups from shutting down. Also, he returned to New Leaf as a member of their board of directors and served as its president until his resignation in 2001.

Murray and Jean had expressed hope that they will be remembered not only for the wonderful family they leave behind but for their work toward creating a better quality of life for the developmentally handicapped.

Jean preceded Murray in death on March 28, 2018.

His survivors include his daughters, Edona Anderson of Palm Desert, Calif., Crystal Bedford of Fort Collins, Colo., and Carrie Anderson of Burlington; sister Charmian Lander of Oak Harbor; brother Dallas (Peggy) Anderson of Sedro Woolley, Wash.; five grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; and numerous nephews.

Two memorial services for Murray and Jean are tentatively planned. When arrangements are final, they will be posted in this obituary. Murray was cremated under the direction of Smart Cremation of Puyallup, and family members plan to scatter his ashes.

In lieu of flowers, please donate to SPARC, 320 Pacific Place, Mount Vernon, WA 98273.

Read and add tributes to Jean's memorial page at bit.ly/jeananderson.

The family would like to share a poem Murray wrote for Jean on their 31st wedding anniversary:

THE SILENCE OF OUR CONVERSATION
By Murray Anderson

In the silence of our conversation
We agree
There is no need
To speak of
The fear of things not sure
Happy times, small wonders, too,
Or sadder days and tears.

Resting on hard won mountain tops
Or quiet forest trails
Wild shores
Or evening fires,
I know what you are feeling
For we have discussed them
This way before
In the silence of our conversation.

A closeness of years
Brings a language of its own
That only you and I can share
In the silence of our conversation.
And the words
Are articulated
In action
And in trust
In the silence of our conversation
Always with love.