December 31, 2009

Walter Louis Schofstoll

Walter Louis Schofstoll, 83, died Dec. 24, 2009, in Ritzville after a battle with Parkinson’s disease. Born in rural Kansas on April 11, 1926, he was the oldest of four children born to Frederick and Sarah Beatrice (Hysell) Schofstoll. Growing up during the difficult years of the Great Depression, he moved with the family to Washington state in 1941.

When he was a senior at Yakima High School, he quit to join the navy during World War II at 17 years of age. He served two years in the Pacific from 1943 to the end of the war in 1945. After the war, he went to work as a security guard on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

It was there he met and married Delores Bjork in 1956. With her encouragement, he went back to school – first earning his G.E.D. and then attending Whitworth College in Spokane, where he graduated with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education. He had a 25-year career teaching math and American history to seventh and eighth graders: first for two years in Lamont and then for 23 years in Wenatchee at Pioneer Middle School.

He also coached track and football.

He retired in 1987 and continued to live in Wenatchee until his wife Delores passed away. In 2004 he moved to Ritzville and lived at Rose Garden Estates assisted living center.

It has been said he loved exercising, traveling, reading, stamp collecting and watching his grandchildren play sports.

He is survived by his three children: Robert and wife Lynn of Bothell, Kathryn and husband Kent of Anacortes, and Steven and wife Kim of Ritzville; seven grandchildren, John and James Schofstoll, Abby and Jennifer Lindberg and Rebecca, Jacob and Elizabeth Schofstoll.

A memorial service will be held in Lind on Saturday, Jan. 2, 2010, at the Lind Calvary Assembly of God Church at 1 p.m.

Danekas Funeral Home and Crematory-Ritzville is handling arrangements.