Helen Peckinpaugh

Helen Doris Peckinpaugh

April 17, 1937 — September 4, 2014

Helen Doris Peckinpaugh, known by all as Doris, of Friday Harbor, Wash., passed away peacefully on Sept. 4.

Doris was cremated and a private family gathering will be held at a later date. Donations in her honor can be made to the Christian Science Church of Friday Harbor.

Doris was born April 17, 1937 in Atlanta, Ga., to Marvin and Cora McElwaney. She was the oldest of four children and grew up in the Atlanta area, where she met her husband of 56 years, Charles Leon (Charlie) Peckinpaugh.

The couple moved to Southern California, where Charlie began his career as a nuclear engineer. Doris and Charlie had two boys, Timothy Lee (Tim), now an attorney living in the Washington, D.C. area, and Charles Matthew (Matt), now an architect living in Gig Harbor.

In 1967, the Peckinpaugh family moved to the Tri-Cities (Kennewick) where Doris worked as a school teacher and Charlie worked at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation for several years before being transferred to South Carolina. After 10 years in South Carolina, Doris and Charlie returned to Washington state in 1998, retiring to San Juan Island, living on the beautiful west side just north of the Lime Kiln lighthouse.

In addition to being a loving wife to her husband and loving mother to her two sons, Doris was a reading teacher to elementary school students, and a school librarian. She was devoted to her church, the Christian Science Church in Friday Harbor, where she did the gardening.

Doris loved reading, the arts, flowers, fashion and clothes, a room with a view (especially of crashing waves), and Coca-Cola with lime. Above all, she loved Charlie, her boys, her five grandchildren, her two sisters and brother, other family members and close friends.

— Family of Doris Peckinpaugh