Melvin Walters

Melvin D. "Dewey" Walters passed away at his family home in the Tahuya River Valley on December 11, 2007. Born on the fourth of July 1922 in Stigler, Oklahoma, he grew up in the small town of Porter (Grays Harbor County) WA. Graduating from Elma High School at age sixteen, he served in the Civilian Conservation Corps for his allotted enlistment and worked for a time in his late teens as a "Gandy Dancer" on track repair crews for the railroad. He began his 31 year career at PSNS as a Sheetmetal Apprentice in 1942. His Apprentice training was interrupted when he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He returned to the shipyard after discharge and finished his apprenticeship in 1947. Dewey's shipyard career was again interrupted when he was reactivated into the newly created U.S. Air Force in 1950 at the outset of the Korean War. After a year in Japan as an Aircraft Mechanic, he returned to the shipyard, eventually retiring in 1973 from the Submarine Business Office. Over the years Dewey built several homes for his wife Neva and family, and after retirement helped other family members and friends with building their own homes. In retirement, Dewey and his wife built their final home on the Tahuya River where he enjoyed vegetable gardening, coin collecting, traveling the country extensively, but most of all playing at, in & on the riverbank with his grandchildren. He is survived by his wife Neva of the family home; son Jeff of Moses Lake; daughter Kay C. Simcic and her husband Bob of Wildcat Lake; daughter-in-law Juli Walters of Brownsville; eight grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren. He was preceded by his beloved son Doug. Of the countless people he met in his full eighty five years, few were those whose lives he did not enrich, and fewer still were those who did not enrich his. His family, his extended family and his many friends will all miss him deeply. The immediate family held a small personal service.