Madeliene Patricia Haller's Obituary
Madeliene Patricia (Pat) Haller
Pat died May 14, 2026 after a full life lived since September 18, 1921 when she was born in Olds, Alberta, Canada, the third of four children of Emma Jean (nee Sande) and Charles Patrick Conway. The family moved to Baker, Oregon where she grew up near and played in the city park and natatorium, graduated high school and lived until the early 1940s when she moved to Tacoma, Washinton. There she lived with her sister, Elenor (Mike), attended college at Puget Sound University, worked for Civil Service, and married her supervisor, Air Force Captain Edward Johnson Haller. He recognized they were destined to be together when she cried when he left for a temporary duty, only later realizing she cried when anyone left. Captain Haller would rise to the rank of Colonel, base commander of Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming where she celebrated with him the Cheyenne Centennial in 1967, rode in a horse drawn surrey, and participated in multiple commemorative events. When he was medically retired after an executive physical related to a pending promotion to general identified a serious condition, he and Pat retired to Tacoma where they lived until his death in January 2000 and she continued to live until her death. She was an active military wife while they lived in Roswell, New Mexico, El Paso, Texas (where she became a naturalized U.S. citizen), Glasgow, Montana, Beale AFB, California, Spokane, Washington and Cheyenne. She volunteered in multiple roles during active duty and continued participation in the Officers Wives Club and many other fraternal groups after retirement during which she established lifelong friendships. After retirement, she and her husband traveled widely, frequently to Hawaii, but also to Sweden (where her husband was born and had many relatives), Japan, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand. She doted on her grandchildren, Amy and Eddie (named for his grandfather) who gloried in receiving multiple Christmas packages and treasured visiting their grandparents in Tacoma. Pat loved life, loved making and maintaining friends, loved reading and completing daily crossword puzzles, loved celebrating holidays, loved Sunday champagne brunch, loved sitting on her patio enjoying her property, loved telling and retelling her favorite stories, loved laughing at every opportunity and loved and cherished her family. She will be missed beyond the power of words to express. She was preceded in death by her parents, siblings, husband and grandson. She is survived by her only child, Ronald Haller, an academic neurologist, and his partner Nancy Neely of Dallas, Texas, her granddaughter Amy Haller and her partner Kyle Morton of Plano, Texas and by nieces Arlene Hayes of Mineola, Texas and LaRae Petrovich of Palm Springs, California. The family is especially grateful for Pat’s friends, Alice Tjelde and Cheryl Toland for their many kindnesses and for Pauline Kabue and her staff who provided loving care at the Neighbors Adult Family Home for the last year of her life. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests contributions to the Madigan Foundation in recognition of the outstanding care provided to Pat by that facility over many decades.
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