Hugh Stanley Adams

Hugh Stanley Adams died peacefully at home on July 10, at the age of 98. He was born July 10, 1920 in Portland, Oregon, to Hugh Phillips Adams and Mary Rosamund Adams, nee Thomas.

Dad attended the Beaumont Elementary School and Grant High School in Portland.  He worked in the woods and in construction for his uncles from the age of 11.  He worked as a logger and stevedore after graduation in 1939, then at the Oregon shipyard on Swan Island, building ships to support the WWII effort.  He enlisted in the Army in 1944 and was honorably discharged in 1945 from the Army Air Force.  He attended Vanport College.

Dad met his future wife, Phyllis Jean Johnson, in Portland, introduced by his cousin Marge. Dad and Mom married in 1948, moving in 1950 to Sunnyside, home for the rest of their lives. Dad worked as a pipefitter welder at Hanford until his retirement in 1982.  Some will remember Mom’s long employment at Seattle First National Bank.

Dad was a man of broad scope.  He was a wise and strong man who successfully charted his family’s voyage across the seas of life, not without help from Mom.  He was a loving husband and affectionate father.  He was a good friend and good neighbor.  He was a metal craftsman par excellence, a crack shot with his .45 Colt Single Action Army, a hunter, a reader of history and exploration, and an oral historian admired by his family. A lover of poetry, he committed Kipling’s The Ballad of East and West to memory, among others.  He was a moral man, and a fair man. He labored to benefit others in his actions and judgements. Not least, he was a man of good humor.

He is predeceased by Phyllis, his beloved wife of 66 years, his parents, his Uncle Stanley Howell ‘Nick’ Thomas, and his lifetime compadres brother Donald E. Adams and cousin Edwin O. Ketel. His immediate survivors are son Frederick Thomas Adams and his wife Emma Catherine, nee Mazon, of Kennewick, who will miss him sorely. He is also survived by his sister-in-law Mrs. Eileen Johnson of Melbourne, Florida, his cousin, Mrs. Patty Cooper of Portland, and his beloved nieces, nephews and cousins of following generations.

A memorial service will be held at Smith Funeral Home, Sunnyside, on Saturday, July 21, 2018 at 3:00 PM. Those wishing to sign Hugh’s online memorial book may do so at www.funeralhomesmith.com  Smith Funeral Home in care of arrangements.

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