Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

Lola Knutson died Oct. 2 in Redmond, Ore. of complications of gall bladder cancer. She was 82.

Friends this week remembered the 36-year resident as capable, intelligent and devoted to family and church. A memorial service will be held 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the Haines Presbyterian Church.

Knutson was born Oct. 13, 1931 to Lola and Frederick Snodgrass at their home in West Seattle. She was her mother's seventh child and one of nine children in a household that included half-siblings and an adopted brother.

Lola was valedictorian of her high school class in Auburn, Wash. and was very involved with the First Methodist Church and the church's youth programs. She attended college summer school at Washington State College in Pullman, Wash. and earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from Central Washington State College of Education in Ellensburg. Through friends in a church program, she met future husband Jim Pritchard.

They married in 1951 in Pullman. Their first child, Clyde LeRoy Pritchard, was born in 1953 in Port Townsend, Wash., near their home in Chimacum, Wash. Because she was unable to have a second child, the couple adopted a girl they named Gayle Christine in 1955.

The family lived in Pullman, Ellensburg, Yakima, Selah, Bellingham and Chimacum before Lola and Jim divorced in 1958.

Lola married Kenneth Vertz, a high school teacher, around 1960. They spent most of their married life in Port Angeles, where Lola worked for the local public power and water utility district. She started out as a secretary and worked her way up to a manager position in the engineering department.

In 1978, a year after Kenneth's death, Lola visited Haines with a neighbor from Sequim, Wash. whose son was helping build the Sheldon Museum. During the visit, she met longtime resident Lowell Knutson. They developed a strong relationship and were married in 1979, moving into a duplex unit on Officer's Row that Lowell owned with his friend and business partner, Ted Gregg.

When Lowell's previous wife died, Lola adopted their 11-year-old son, Morgan, as her third child and second son.

Lowell became a woodworker when he was no longer able to work as a timber faller. For many years Lola helped him market his creations via outlets including the Sheldon Museum and consignment shops around Haines. They also opened and operated Knute's Shop in the foyer of their Fort Seward home.

Neighbor Joan Snyder described Lola Knutson as an avid gardener and homemaker who won the Southeast Alaska State Fair's homemaker of the year award. "She was quietly intelligent. She was good at writing and was computer literate in her eighties. She was a knowledgeable lady but she chose to stay close to home and her church."

Fort Seward resident Annette Smith remembered Knutson as thoughtful and skillful. "She could do guy things like work on the electricity in her house. She always had good information and interesting ideas on any topics that came up."

Family members said Knutson was a supporter of the Sheldon Museum for many years and was a big supporter of the Haines Public Library.

Besides serving for years as pianist at Haines Presbyterian Church, Knutson served as a church elder and devoted herself to a mission through the group Samaritan's Purse that distributes toys to needy children at Christmas. "She was a go-to person in the church," said past church elder Bonnie Sharnbroich. "She was a strong prayer warrior that people depended on. She will be missed."

Knutson spent most of 2014 with her son Clyde and her daughter-in-law Debbie in central Oregon, where she was receiving medical care.

Lola Knutson is survived by sons Clyde LeRoy Pritchard of Terrebonne, Ore. and Morgan Lowell Knutson of Haines, by daughter Gayle Christine Pritchard-Royer of Hillsboro, Ore., and by many grandchildren.

She will be interred at Jones Point Cemetery beside husband Lowell Knutson.