Alma Fulford

A 95-Year Life

Alma Ruth Fulford left this Earth on January 25, 2016, following an evening in the hospital due to a heart attack. Her last afternoon was spent playing bingo, winning a Snickers bar and visiting with residents and staff at Teton Peaks Assisted Living in Driggs, Idaho. She is survived by her son Mark Fulford of Port Townsend, Wash., and daughters Deb Grove Hinkley of Victor, Idaho and Karen Barnes of North Bend, Wash. She is also survived by her grandchildren: Phillip Grove of Whitefish, Mont., Vanessa Fulford of Kirkland, Wash. and Kelly Grove of Missoula, Mont.

Alma was born December 22, 1921, in Odessa, the sixth of 10 children to Jacob and Katherine Pister Schauerman of Frank, Saratov, Russia. Her parents came to the U.S. from Bremen, Germany, arriving in Galveston, Texas aboard the “Frankfurt” on July 24, 1909. German was the language spoken at home. Alma outlived all of her siblings by two years. Growing up during the depression, Alma shared stories of learning to skate on one ice skate and sharing a bicycle with all of her sisters. Her mother, a self-taught seamstress, sewed all of the family’s clothes from patterns she designed. Her father was a construction worker who built grain elevators for the vast Inland Empire wheat production.

In high school, she was honored as a typing champion and violin player in the orchestra. Following graduation, she left her small town for beauty school in Spokane and subsequently moved to Seattle to start her own business in the Madison Park area of Lake Washington. She enjoyed a new expressive art form called Modern Dance, joined the Seattle Dance Theater, which was featured in the Seattle Sunday Times Rotogravure. It was at that time that she met her husband-to-be Lloyd Fulford, who was attending the University of Washington. A returning WWII veteran who picked up the card game of bridge, he soon taught Alma, which resulted in a life-long love of the game for the two of them.

The couple moved to the developing east side of Seattle, to the Bellevue-Redmond area, once their children came along. As a young mother, Alma was always involved in the education and activities of her children. She served as a Camp Fire Girls leader and contributed many years of fundraising efforts to the Seattle Children’s Hospital. As years passed, Alma was supportive of Lloyd’s desire to start a wholesale door distribution business and kept a tidy house, (until grandchildren arrived). She enjoyed collections of Madame Alexander Dolls, birdhouses and German-made nutcrackers at Christmastime. She and Lloyd traveled much of the U.S., attending National Sash and Door Jobbers Association conventions, and also traveled abroad to Australia, Yugoslavia and the Panama Canal.

Parkside funeral services were held at the Tahoma National Cemetery, where she was laid to rest February 2.

Remembrances can be made to Seattle Children’s Hospital Foundation, P.O. Box 5371/S-200 Seattle, WA 98145-5005 or https://giveto.seattlechildrens.org/

Online memorial condolences can be made at http://www.valleymortuarydriggs.com or on the Facebook page of Deb Grove Hinkley.