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Alberta "Bert" Marguerite Griffith was born in the Panama Canal Zone, October 20, 1926. Her father, Jesse Eugene Hill, and her mother, Madeline Kirkland Grey Hill, were with the Navy. From there they moved to Bremerton, Washington, where she attended high school. She completed one year of college at the University of Washington in Seattle before World War II changed her life. Bert loved to dance, and she was an outstanding dancer. She caught the eye of a young lieutenant, Milton John Griffith at the officer's club in Bremerton. After a whirlwind romance they were married February 21, 1944 in Lexington Memorial Chapel in Farragut, Idaho. They honeymooned in San Francisco, enjoying the city and staying at the Mark Hopkins Hotel. Milton shipped out and would be in the Pacific on an LST until 1946. When he returned, she joined him in Baltimore, Maryland while he healed from wounds he suffered in the war. At Penn State before the war Milton studied forestry. They started their life's journey in Ohio, but Milt wasn't interested in working for a lumber company, so they headed west. Arriving in Yellowstone National Park Milt got a job as a park ranger and Bert worked in a soda shop. From there Milton was hired as a Ranger for the Forest Service in Custer, South Dakota, and Bert stayed in Bremerton to give birth to their first child. Sandra Lee Griffith was born October 9, 1947. Seven weeks later Bert and Sandra flew to South Dakota. A year later Michael John Griffith was born on October 4, 1948. In 1950 The family moved to Dolores, Colorado, where Milton was hired as a Ranger on the San Juan National Forest. They spent their summers in the Rockies at The Glade, a forest service cabin with no running water or electricity, where Bert cooked on a wood stove and Sandra and Mike had horses and horny toads for friends. From Dolores the family moved to Burns, Oregon. Bert had a passion for fashion and knew how to dress well. Having a strong sense of design and style Bert applied her knowledge to Interior design where she would pick paint for the walls and put together fabric for the chairs and textures for the drapes to compose and arrange the entire space. In Burns she became friends with the owner of the Vogue Dress Shop. Together they offered the women in the area very stylish clothing of current fashions. Eventually the family moved to Bend after a year in Washington D.C. where Milton was selected for a special detail. Around 1974 Milton was offered a job in Kenya with U S AID. They moved to Mombasa where Bert learned to play Mahjong. She became friends with artists and shopkeepers buying and learning about the Arts of Kenya. In a couple years they moved to Nairobi where she immersed herself in the Arts of both the Kenyans and the Indian carvers who had immigrated to Kenya from India. After 12 years in Kenya, they traveled home through India where they had friends and Thailand where they rode elephants and finally Hong Kong. They stopped in Hawaii where Bert had lived as a young girl of three with her two sisters and her mother and father. After Milton passed in 2008 Bert stayed in the home they built until September 17, 1918. At 91 she decided to move to Touchmark. When she fell ill her granddaughter Christen Brooke from Seattle came to stay with her along with her daughter Sandra and son-in-law Henry Sayre. She passed peaceably July 15, 2020. In addition to Sandra, Henry, and Christen she is survived by her grandsons, John Prindle Sayre (Yuba City, Ca) and Robert Franklin Sayre (San Francisco, Ca) and her great grandchildren, Sydney Griffith Gladu (Seattle, Wa.) and Chance Nicolai Gladu (Seattle, Wa.). In lieu of flowers donations can be made to Partners in Care Hospice and The Humane Society of Central Oregon. She will join her husband and son at Pilot Butte Cemetery August 3, 2020.

Tributes

Alberta "Bert" Marguerite Griffith

October 20, 1926 - July 15, 2020