William H. Sperber
Long time Pacific Northwest native William H. Sperber Jr. passed away peacefully on March 9, 2014 due to complications with Alzheimer’s. He is survived by his wife Virginia, their children Cheryl and Brian, and grandchildren Caitlin, Emily, and Hanna.
Bill was born in Portland, Oregon on March 16, 1933 to William Henry Sperber Sr. and Elva Wood Sperber. His youth was spent in Pendleton, Oregon where he lived until his college years at John Hopkins University and Willamette University. In 1957, he married Virginia May Reese where they then moved to Corvallis in order for Bill to earn his Bachelor’s Degree in Business at Oregon State. The two then relocated to Longview, Washington after graduation where he spent one year at Longview Fibre where Cheryl was born. To complete his Masters of Business Administration at the University of Washington, they moved to Seattle. Virginia and Cheryl moved to Southern California with Bill so he could take part in a two-year study program with Hugh’s Aircraft and later be employed as Assistant Controller at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. During their stay in California, Brian was born. In 1968, he moved his family back to the Pacific Northwest where he began his banking career and raised their children on Mercer Island. Bill held positions with Seattle First National Bank, Rainier Bank, the former Deloitte Haskins and Sells, Bank of America in San Francisco and the Bank of New England in Boston. After spending three years back East, they returned to Washington where he and two other trust officers founded The Trust Company of Washington. In 2000, he retired from The Trust Company.
From yearly trips to the coast, Bill and Virginia cultivated their love of travelling by exploring much of the United States and many European countries. Through the twenty homes they lived in, Bill always needed a little spot for himself whether that was a shop extension to a garage, a rooftop hideaway, or a workstation in a bathtub. Genealogy was another field of interest Bill was active in that was initiated by his older sister, Sue. He later became President of the Eastside Genealogical Society. Realizing this was where they would retire, they called Bellevue and Kirkland home before moving back to Mercer Island to settle at Covenant Shores. Bill spent the last eleven months of his life under the loving care of Adina Puravet at a Bellevue adult senior care facility. To his family and those who truly knew him, Bill was a believer of fairness and justice, a person of the utmost integrity, forceful yet dignified, gentle and intellectually curious.
A public celebration of Bill Sperber’s life will be held in the Fellowship Hall at Covenant Shores on Mercer Island on Saturday April 26 at 2 p.m. A family graveside service will be held in Pendleton, Oregon on May 17. Remembrances can be made to the Western/Central Washington State Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association on 100 W Harrison Street, N200, Seattle, WA 98119.
A guestbook can be viewed at Legacy.com.
