Gloria Balken's Obituary
Gloria Balken passed away from this world on May 22, 2015 after a brief but steep decline in her health due to a fall. She was 90 years old. Right up to her departure, she lived a life of independence and study in the same Lakewood neighborhood she lived in for the past 55 years.
Gloria was born in Las Vegas NV and loved to describe her childhood in the desert that included memories of her father being paid in suitcases of cash for his construction work on the Flamingo Hotel by Bugsy Siegel and his work on the Hoover Dam. In her teens, she became stewardess for the early airlines in the earliest days of flight.
In that career she met her first husband, a Texas oil magnet and the father of her first son, Beck Balken. Divorcing early, she met her second husband and father of her son Anthony in Hollywood CA.
Soon as a single mother of two, she returned to the Northwest to embark on a career in education that would last the rest of her life. She graduated from the University of Puget Sound and began her life as a kindergarten teacher in the Puyallup school system. In those thirty years, she deeply touched and influenced the lives of thousands of local children at Hilltop and Mountain View elementary schools. Past students recall her inventive use of teaching aids like personal notes from 'Wise Mr. Owl" positively encouraging them in their growth personally as well as in education.
Upon her retirement Gloria traveled and continued her studies, never giving up her relentless pursuit of knowledge in all spheres. She returned to the church of her birth and completed her ambition to be Temple Endowed.
Gloria is survived by her two sons, Beck and Anthony, graduates of Charles Wright Academy and the University of Puget Sound. Her loving granddaughters Kaliegh and Francis, her brothers Richard, Jay and sister Sally.
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