Earl Stanley RIP 9-12-2017

Robin Stangland - Daughter

Robin wrote: "My dad, Earl Stanley passed away this week from Alzheimer’s disease at age 93. Dad always had a great sense of humor, and even through the haze of Alzheimer he had a quick wit. He also loved telling stories. He really enjoyed taking his grand kids (Audrey and Amanda) on adventures like swimming with the dolphins in Hawaii. The past couple of years he enjoyed going on adventures with Amanda (who was his caregiver) like watching the sunset, going to Wood’s coffee, or hiking to the top of a mountain in Mt. Vernon in his wheel chair to check out the view. He taught me to swim, snorkel, change a bike tire, fish, drive a boat, back up a trailer, water ski, spear fish, and how to pace myself on the 30 mile bike rides we used to take. One of my favorite memories was when, while we were snorkeling in Hawaii, he had me lure a moray eel out of its den with a piece of chicken so he could take a picture of it. One of my least favorites was when he made me drive the boat for him and his buddies in the pouring rain off the Oregon coast so they could go diving. When I was a baby he took my brothers and sister on a rattlesnake hunt and they caught a rattlesnake and ate it for dinner! My dad was the favorite of every family dog we ever had!

Dad was a career military man who served in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. He was decorated for heroism twice; once in Germany for diving under a waterfall through barbed wire to save someone who was drowning, and another time in Monterrey CA for attempting to rescue a boy from a white shark attack. He used his military travels to have adventures all over the world, like Burma, India, Vietnam, Korea, Indonesia, Aleutian Islands, and Germany. He was a very tough man who taught us to be tough as well. In fact, one of his favorite sayings was “Hardship makes the soldier!” His other favorite saying when I was a kid was “when I was a little girl….” And then he’d say how it was when he was a kid. In his old age he would always say “Good-to-go baby!” when we would be getting him in his wheelchair. Dad liked gold mining, working out (when he retired from the Army at age 48 he set the army record for sit-ups: 3000!), scuba diving, snorkeling, taking underwater pictures, spearing big fish, and enjoying nature. This picture definitely captures his personality!"