Val Douglas Shrauner

Val was born in 1935 in Kansas to Ruby Bryant Shrauner (died 1982) and Walter Wayne Shrauner (died 1988). In 1937, to escape the Dust Bowl, they moved to San Francisco, CA. In 1941, they moved to the Spokane, WA area, where they lived on 120 acres in Greenbluff, WA.

For elementary school, he attended a 3 room schoolhouse with 2 outhouses. For junior high, he attended a 4 room 2 story building. He graduated from Mead High School in 1953 with 49 other graduates.

In 1953, he joined the Coast Guard. He went to Alaska and California and Hawaii and Samoa and New Zealand and Australia. And he spent quite some time in Antarctica, where his ship was used to break up ice flows. He was able to hike into Scott’s hut and Wilson’s base. He also helped to wrangle penguins away from the ship’s ice breaking activities.

He also spent time on lightships. Lightships are lighthouses, but at sea. They help keep other ships oriented to land. A relief lightship, called the Swiftsure, is docked and being rehabbed on Lake Union. We were able to tour the ship with Val in 2016.

He attended Gonzaga from 1957 - 1958. From 1958 to 1964, he took turns going to school at the University of Washington, serving in the Coast Guard, and working at Boeing.

In 1958, he bought a trailer and then moved it to Seattle in 1959. He was honorably discharged from the Coast Guard in 1961. He graduated from the UW in 1964.

He bought 2 acres of property in upper Preston in 1962 and then started building a cabin in 1965. A beautiful A-frame house.

He met his wife, Laurene, at Boeing, where he worked for 37 years as an Electrical Engineer, retiring in 1995.

Val and Laurene married in 1966 and he finished the A-frame in 1970. They had 2 children. And then they all moved to Kent (technically Unincorporated South King County) in 1974.

The property in Kent was 10 acres. On the property were apple trees and cherry trees and a pear tree and plum trees and a hazelnut tree. They often had cows. He put up a basketball hoop. They stacked and unstacked hay (and played wall ball) in the quonset hut, where the big tractor lived. There was a salt lick in the pasture. At the back of the property, there was a small forest that borders the Soos Creek trail. He had a bunch of tools and equipment that he kept in the 5-car garage / outbuilding. He built a big swing for his wife one year. He also transformed an old riding mower into a tiny tractor. He could build or fix just about anything.

They were all members at Kent First Presbyterian Church, where they were married, their kids were baptized, and in 1994, Val was baptized as well.

Val and Laurene parted ways with Tumbledown Farm in 2010 and moved into a condo in Ballard in Seattle.

He leaves behind his wife of 58 years, Laurene (Tabbutt) Shrauner; his daughter, Anne Shrauner, and her wife Robin Anex, and their kids Marta, Simone, and Frederick Anex-Schnauss; his son, Ryan Shrauner, and his wife Elise Johnstone, and their son Walter Johnstone.

He had many passions: building stuff and keeping a journal and reading and classical music and studying and the cosmos and history (part of his history journal: 1632 London has coffee shops) and art and painting and drawing and cars and learning about brains and quiet.

If you knew Val, you knew he was a quiet man. If you KNEW knew Val, you knew how funny and kind and smart and clever he was.

Service will be on September 7, 2024 at 1pm at St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church in West Seattle.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to support Alzheimer’s research ( https://www.alz.org/alzwa ) or you might enjoy supporting the Lightship restoration project ( https://www.nwseaport.org ).

Please direct Memorial Donations to the facility/charity listed in the obituary above