Emmet Hoynes

Emmet Hoynes was born sixth of eight children to Raymond and Mildred Hoynes on October 24, 1930 in Malta, Montana and passed away on December 2, 2021 at the age of 91.

Emmet grew up in Malta and attended the local elementary and high schools. Besides all his siblings, he grew up with numerous cousins. He spent many happy times during the summer at his aunt and uncle’s ranch working and playing with his cousins. After graduating from high school, he spent a couple years working as a plumber’s apprentice. He eventually left that job to attend the University of Montana in Missoula getting a bachelor of arts degree in English and participating in ROTC. While at the university, he met the love of his life, Joy. After graduation, Emmet went into the army and was sent to San Antonio, Texas for training for the medical corps. Emmet and Joy had been planning a summer wedding, but when he found out he was being stationed in Germany, he called Joy and asked if she could be ready to marry in two weeks. Joy’s mother said no, but Joy said yes. They were married in Missoula in March of 1955 and made their first home in San Antonio. Emmet was sent to Landstuhl, Germany and Joy joined him soon after. Their first child, Mark, was born in Landstuhl. While living and working in Germany, Emmet and Joy loved to travel whenever Emmet got leave.

After returning to the states in 1956, Emmet worked at his aunt and uncle’s ranch for a while, but decided he didn’t want to be a rancher so he went back to school and got a masters degree in English. The family moved to Pasco, Washington where Emmet taught English at Columbia Basin Community College. While there, they added a daughter, Lisa, and two more sons, Sean and Pat. Emmet soon discovered that teaching freshman English was not for him. He moved his family to Seattle where he returned to school and earned a master of library science degree. He got a job in the library at Olympic College in Bremerton. After working many jobs during his life, Emmet had finally discovered his dream job. He worked his way up to Director of the Learning Resources Center at Olympic College and except for the time he served as interim Dean of Instruction, he remained Director of the LRC until he retired in 1992.

While raising their family in Bremerton, Emmet and Joy took their family on numerous adventurous tent camping trips, and countless trips to visit relatives in Washington, California, and Montana. Emmet helped his children with many of their projects from building a fort in the backyard to crafting scout pinewood derby cars to various school research projects. He taught his children many skills from riding bicycles to building campfires to driving for the first time. His children knew that if something broke, their dad would go down to his shop and find just the right screw, bolt, wood scrap, piece of wire to fix it. He was always there whenever his children needed him even after they became adults.

In 1972, Emmet and Joy had the shell of a house built in Silverdale. They spent long evenings and weekends finishing the insides of the house themselves and moved in just after Thanksgiving that year. Though the house was not finished at Christmas, they hosted several relatives and had a memorable celebration.

In 1988, Emmet and Joy planned a family reunion for cousins on Emmet’s mother’s side of the family. Around one hundred family members came from all over including California, Montana, Canada and Norway. For three days, the many cousins visited, played, and had good times together.

After Emmet retired, he and Joy traveled to numerous places. They made it to five of the seven continents and many of the states. They took their children on a cruise to Alaska and later, a trip to Whistler, Canada.

Emmet was preceded in death by his parents, all seven siblings and son Mark. He is survived by his wife of 66 years Joy, daughter Lisa, son Sean (Schelie), son Pat, daughter-in-law Sharon, grandchildren Emily, Katie (Ben), Zach, Devin, step grandchildren Kyle, Aaron, Katie, Andrés, AJ, great-grandson Taron, step great-grandchildren Cooper and Willa, nieces and nephews and numerous cousins.

His family was the joy of Emmet’s life although reading was a close second. He also loved gardening, traveling, and getting together with family and friends.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Central Kitsap Food Bank.