Faye Lorraine Reese's Obituary
Faye was born in Tacoma and resided in her home in University Place from 1954 to 2026. She was preceded in death by her beloved husband of 64 years, Jack Reese and is survived by her sister Ellen Richmond of Deming NM, son Jay Reese of University Place, son Paul and daughter in law Jeanette Reese of Mercer Island, granddaughter Madeleine Smallwood of Seattle, a very large and loving extended family, and all the wonderful friends she cherished.
Faye’s joy in life was the company of others. She was a kind, capable, and friendly extrovert with an engaging and compassionate gaze whose focus was on you and we, as in how are you doing and what can we share together? Many of us strive to be better people, but that striving is normally hard work. Then there are those lucky few with a glint in their eye, a ready smile, and a natural focus outside of themselves whose constitutions are custom built, it seems, for friendship and service. Faye was one of those lucky few and her thoughts, especially later in life, were filled with vibrant gratitude for each one of you that she was so very blessed to have shared a moment or spent a lifetime with.
Faye was the third of four children (Margaret, Ellen, Faye, Frank) born in Tacoma to Adolph C. and Dagmar R. Burklund (nee Palsson) in the family home of her grandfather Nels P. Burklund, who with his wife Johanna M. (nee Johansen) had moved across the Narrows to Tacoma in 1897 when pregnant with the fifth of their seven children after homesteading on Fox Island, along with Johanna’s parents, Christian H. and Birthe S. Johansen (nee Olsdotter) since 1883. Faye attended Franklin Elementary, Jason Lee Junior High, and Stadium High School, graduating from Stadium in 1946. The Burklund home was an in-city farm of sorts on an acre of land down the ridgeline from Bellarmine Prep’s perch adjacent to hillside woods and valley marshes that development had passed by as streets and homes filled flatter land easier to build on all around Tacoma. Good neighbors supported each other with Dagmar’s baked goods and pies a delight for all. She ran the home/farm while raising their four children and Ade worked the standard 6am-6pm shifts at the St. Paul and Tacoma Lumber mill on the tide flats at the foot of 11th Street. Faye made and maintained wonderful lifelong friendships growing up there; she was the organizer of her six childhood girlfriends that were still holding monthly “get togethers” all throughout their adult lives. Bev Leach, Bev Downey, Midge Scholdstein, Marion Willoughby, Faye Burklund, and Lois Kenney, Stadium High Class of 1946, have all left us now, but their shared joy and warmth endures.
Upon high school graduation, after focusing on the skills of stenography and shorthand, Faye’s older sister Margaret, who worked in the Tacoma Prosecuting Attorney’s office, gave her a job lead to apply to work for a young attorney, just back from WWII, starting up a new practice in South Tacoma. James P. Healy (later to be a Pierce County Superior Court judge) trained his new assistant thoroughly, preparing her extremely well for a 42-year career as a legal secretary. Jim Healy and his family became fast friends of the Burklunds; he doubled up and hired Dagmar to provide day care for his young daughter Cecilia Ann, who would later be the flower girl at Faye’s wedding. Faye would often tell stories of the real- life initiation she received working long hours five and a half days a week for Jim, as the 18-year-old girl from Stadium High was introduced to a wide-ranging law practice that included all the vagaries of human behavior in divorce, bankruptcy, child custody, estates, and criminal matters. An eye opener for sure, but Faye never lost her smile or composure; she developed herself into an expert in legal support.
After eight years with Jim, her new married life had her looking for regular hours just five days a week with the normal menu of holidays, so she reluctantly left with Jim’s blessing, for a new job with the Pierce County Clerk’s office. She lasted only about six months when another attorney, Floyd Hicks (later a US Congressman, WA Supreme Court Justice, and Pierce County Superior Court Judge) ran into her stamping his documents and told her, “Faye, you’re wasting your skills and time here, come work for me”, she took his advice and joined Goodwin, Hicks, Malanca, & Hager one of the larger and more successful law firms in the city. After the birth of her two children, she returned to another prominent downtown Tacoma law firm - Binns, Jacques, and Petrich as the primary legal assistant to Jack Petrich (later to be a judge on the Washington State Court of Appeals). She would follow Jack to work in Olympia when as a State Senator he was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and found that he needed a committee secretary he could count on. Faye would hold that job in Olympia for all the legislative sessions between 1961 and 1971. Faye worked for Jack in 1961 and 1963 and later greatly enjoyed working for the youngest ever State Senator, new committee chair Wesley Uhlman from Cashmere (the future two term mayor of Seattle).
In the late 1960s Faye did finally move into the secure job she had been desiring by reaching out to an attorney for the Washington State Bar Legislative Committee she had worked with in Olympia, W.L. Brown, who was now a judge on Pierce County Superior Court to see if any positions were available. Judge Brown later commented that when he told the eight other judges on the court that Faye was inquiring about work, that they not only all knew her well, but were extremely pleased and enthusiastic about having someone with her outstanding reputation added to their team. She was hired shortly and worked on the staff of two people who together were assigned to run both the Pierce County Law Library and administratively support all the judges on the Pierce County Superior Court. In 1974 her friend and legal mentor, James P. Healy, was elected a judge on the court and they renewed their valued working relationship. Faye loved her job in the law library and working with all the judges, she was at the courthouse nexus of the legal community in Tacoma; daily engaging with all the attorneys and legal admins she’d known for years, while also making new legal friends every day. In 1988 she both retired and was named Pierce County Legal Secretary of the Year, awarded by the organization now known as the National Association for Legal Support Professionals of Pierce County. Judge Waldo F. Stone commented on her award, “Can you imagine the challenge of working for 15 independent elected public officials and having each of those parties happy and well satisfied with your work? While additionally each of those 15 bosses also finds you to be cheerful, helpful, and their go-to problem solver for issues as diverse as the annual court budget or a stuck typewriter ribbon?"
Faye was introduced to her future husband Jack by mutual friends Lois Wargo and John Halseth in 1951. Their compatibility was immediately felt; their long and happy marriage began on September 19, 1952, in a ceremony held at the home of the bride’s parents since the thought of walking down the aisle at the gothic stone First Lutheran Church was too nerve-wracking for Jack to consider. In a letter upon her retirement Jim Healy wrote about this relationship between Faye and Jack, “I will never forget the joy that radiated from her when she met Jack Reese. I could not have been more proud of her on her wedding day if she had been my own daughter.”
Faye was an organizer and loved to host family and friends, whether that be “get-togethers” of her school girlfriends, the Stadium Class of ’46 that she arranged class reunions for on the decade, or her neighbors in University Place. 30th Street in UP was where special bonds between three families were formed as they collaborated on raising kids and having fun. Jack & Faye Reese with Jay and Paul, Jack & Eileen Curran with Claudia, Kathy, and John, and Sandy & Madaline Pedersen with Jan and Sandra formed a clan still tightly bound together from all the shared joy, laughter, and heartfelt concern for each other. Faye was a letter writer ensuring that distant friends and family knew they were valued and cared about. She and husband Jack in 1958 were founding members of Mount Cross Lutheran Church, over the years she was always doing and volunteering at church, notably as church secretary in the 60’s and 70’s and as a co-pilot with Pam Erickson of Noah’s Ark Preschool in the late 80’s and early 90’s; working with the children was such a joy for her in her early retirement years. Faye worked for 42 years and was retired for 38 years; her years of leisure were filled joyously with travel, friends, and family. Her last trip out of state was in June 2023 to visit her sister Ellen and attend the wedding of Ellen’s youngest granddaughter in New Mexico, dozens of family members to see again and a hundred potential new friends to make at the wedding. That abundance of family, friends, and goodwill was for Faye the paradise of fellowship that she spent her life contributing to.
A Memorial Service will be held at Mount Cross Lutheran Church in University Place at 1 PM on Saturday, June 27 th , 2026. Full online tributes can be found at both https://www.legacy.com and https://www.mountainviewtacoma.com/obituaries. In lieu of flowers, contributions in memory of Faye may be made to Mount Cross Lutheran Church, https://www.mountcrosslutheran.org/online-giving.
What’s your fondest memory of Faye?
What’s a lesson you learned from Faye?
Share a story where Faye's kindness touched your heart.
Describe a day with Faye you’ll never forget.
How did Faye make you smile?