Charles Earl Lowrey

passed away on Saturday, June 20, 2015 at his home in Poulsbo, Washington.Chuck was born 100 years ago, March 26, 1915 at home in Council Bluffs, Iowa to Roy and Madie Lowrey. At the age of three he moved to Seattle Washington, after his father accepted a dockside parcel post delivery job with the U.S. Postal Service. A highlight of grade school was the chance to view Charles Lindbergh fly over his school and land at Sand Point Naval Air Station. While attending Roosevelt High School, he participated in orchestra, opera, concert, and glee. Additionally, he was the football and intramural sports manager. During that time, he also tinkered with cars, took up skiing, and was an avid swimmer and lifeguard. After graduation, he attended the University of Washington but decided that school wasn't for him. Nonetheless, he was a dedicated Husky fan for the remainder of his life.His career included being a paperboy, a worker for Harry Shuck getting car parts from the junk yard, a vacuum repairman and door-to-door used vacuum salesman, a riveter for Boeing on B-17s, and finally a job working for the telephone company for 39 years. After a couple of years of working for the telephone company as a cable splicer, WWII came about. During the war, he served in the Army with Alaskan Communications System to lay, splice, and repair underwater cables from cable barges which were needed for communications between Seattle and Alaska. While stationed in Juneau, he was also involved in stringing and repairing telephone cables up to Kodiak and on some of the Aleutian Islands, including Dutch Harbor, AK and inland as far as Grande Prairie, Alberta.He met Miriam Des Camp in high school and married her in 1938. They had one son Larry and one daughter Lael. He also had three grandchildren and five great grandchildren.After the war he returned to work at the telephone company. Chuck bought a piece of property on Bainbridge Island, just off the NW corner of Battle Point Radio Station, which stretched down to the water. Chuck cleared a portion of the land with the help of his family and built his home that he lived in for the next fifty years. He accomplished many things during that time, including owning a shoe store named Lowrey's Shoe Box, coaching little league baseball, and being an active member of Saint Cecilia Church on the Island.Never one to miss out on outdoor activities, he belonged to the Wing Point Golf Club and golfed for many years. He enjoyed skiing from his high school years until parking his skies as an ancient skier in his late 80's. Throughout those years of skiing Chuck helped build and was an early member of the Penguins' Ski Lodge at Stevens Pass. He dedicated time to teaching others to ski as a ski instructor at Snoqualmie and loved skiing in Sun Valley, Idaho and Snowmass, Colorado. When it wasn't ski season, he could be found boating. An active member of the Poulsbo Yacht Club since 1966 and Commodore (70-71), he loved boating, predicted log races, cruises with friends to Desolation Sound and many other cruises to marine parks within the Salish Sea.After his wife passed away, he continued to travel by both land (RV'ing) and sea. He remarried to Ruth LeFluer and built a new house in Poulsbo. Refusing to slow down, he enjoyed family, friends, and activities too numerous to list. After the loss of his second wife, he continued his nonstop, active lifestyle. Only in the last years was he forced to slow his highly active life. He passed naturally in the home he loved surrounded by family on June 20, 2015.A Memorial Mass will be held on Friday, June 26, 2015 at 9 AM at St. Cecilia Catholic Church on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Interment will take place in Seattle, Washington. Arrangements entrusted to Cook Family Funeral Home.