Virginia Lee Slate Eals

Virginia Lee Slate Eals, 87, a devoted wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother who worked in sales and office positions and lived on Mercer Island for 30 years, passed away March 27, 2010, in West Seattle of stroke complications. The youngest of four sisters, Mrs. Eals was born Feb. 8, 1923, in West Seattle to Joseph Faust Slate and Florence Shouse Slate. A 1941 graduate of West Seattle High School, she attended the University of Washington until 1943.In the mid-1940s, she was married for three years to Charles “Dutch” Leonard and worked as a copy girl for the Seattle Star newspaper, in clerical positions for Foster & Marshall brokerage, Boeing and Pacific Motor Boat magazine and as office manager for a dinnerware/glassware firm in the Terminal Sales Building. In 1948, she met Henry Clay Eals, who also worked in the Terminal Sales Building, and they married Aug. 12, 1950, in West Seattle. Their first home was in north Seattle, where they had three sons. They lived in Los Angeles briefly in 1955 then returned to the Seattle area to stay, living in the upper Mercerwood neighborhood of Mercer Island until moving in summer 1963 to the island’s Parkwood subdivision. On the island, Mrs. Eals devoted herself to family and volunteering (Children’s Orthopedic Hospital fundraising, Cub Scouts den mother) and assisted her husband in his work as a manufacturer’s representative for children’s and young women’s clothing. Beginning in 1970, as her sons left home, she worked 18 years as a clerk in the Bellevue Traffic Violations Bureau. In 1985, she and her husband moved to Issaquah. Fourteen months after Mr. Eals’ death on Sept. 7, 2002, Mrs. Eals returned to West Seattle to live at Merrill Gardens Admiral Heights. She suffered strokes in early 2004 and moved four blocks north to Park West Care Center, where she spent her final six years. Mrs. Eals frequently hosted gatherings of family and friends and enjoyed gardening, knitting and traveling with her husband. In 1986, she was baptized in Mr. Eals’ Kentucky hometown at Cynthiana Christian Church. Among many relatives from her and Mr. Eals’ families, survivors include a son, Clay (and Meg) Eals, of West Seattle; twin sons David (and Camille) Eals, of Monterey, Calif., and Doug (and Denise) Eals, of Duvall; grandchildren Karey (and Jesse) Bacon(and daughter Ronia), of Philadelphia, Scott (and Amy) Eals

(and children Kadence, Lex and Declan), of Lafayette, La., Chris(and Krystina) Eals (and sons Connor and Parker), of Bremerton,and Sean Eals, of Issaquah; a sister, Dorothy Johnson, of San Rafael, Calif.; a niece, Beverly Williams, of Salinas, Calif.; and nephews Jerry (and Pat) Johnson, of La Mesa, Calif., Nick (and Linda) Kobylk, of Mount Pleasant, S.C., and Steven (and Josie) Kobylk, of Coupeville. A memorial service for Mrs. Eals will be at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 24, 2010, at Park West Care Center, 1703 California Ave. S.W., West Seattle. Her cremated remains will rest at Sunset Hills Memorial Park in Bellevue. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorials be sent to a children’s charity of choice.

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