Erma Dorothy Laughlin passed away peacefully January 13, 2013, one week before her 91st birthday. Erma was born in Seattle, Washington January 20, 1922 to John and Martha Pickrell, the third of six children. Erma was raised in West Seattle, graduating from West Seattle High School in 1940. Being smart and feisty, Erma had aspirations to attend college yet grew up in an age when it was not customary. Instead, Erma married a neighborhood pal, Harold Ebert Laughlin on September 18, 1941 and took up residence in West Seattle. In 1943, after having their first daughter, Linda, Harold and Erma purchased a 3-bedroom house on a chicken and berry farm adjacent to the Biloxi “mosquito fleet” dock on the north end of Vashon.
Children were a great joy to Erma. By 1959 Erma and Harold had seven children, Linda, Harold, James, Mary, Martha, Edward, and William. Erma and Harold led Vashon Presbyterian youth groups for years, often taking packs of boisterous teenagers on multiple-day camping trips through the wilderness of the Cascades and Olympic Mountains. Erma and Harold’s dinner table was the place where she would meet her children’s new boyfriends, girlfriends, and friends. As the multitudes of friends cycling through the dining area became too much to keep track of, every kid’s name, boy or girl, became George. Erma even called the kitty George. On Saturdays of each week Erma would liberate herself from her position as chief of the house, ditching the kids with Harold to go to Seattle and spend the day contently shopping for a new pair of shoes.
During her days raising children Erma cultivated her many talents becoming expert at stitching complex quilt panels and clothing; gardening vegetables and dahlias; knitting hats and sweaters; baking fresh bread and blackberry pies; and serving as a welcoming hostess at multiple family dinners and clam bakes. Erma even had skills she didn’t know she had when Harold left a car with a broken transmission at the ferry dock for her to drive home. Discovering the car only ran in one direction, reverse, Erma drove to the house backwards. Upon returning home, Harold got an earful, so Erma always had cars that drove forward after that.
By the 1980s the children were grown so Harold, a computer programmer in the aerospace industry, became an independent contractor or “job shopper” moving with Erma to Pennsylvania, Texas, and California while always maintaining their home base on Vashon. Erma took great pleasure in sewing, seeking out fabric stores in every state returning to Vashon with yards and yards of new fabric.
Eventually, Erma and Harold’s family included 20 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren. Being a grandmother was fun for Erma. Many an evening was spent playing scrabble and eating ice cream with a grandchild. Always one to support her children’s educations or vocations, Erma practically raised some of her grandchildren. Erma and Harold were married for 59 years, and after Harold’s death in 2000, Erma was the focal point of family gatherings. Besides keeping track of her large family, she donated her time and expertise to Granny’s Attic Thrift Store. Erma was and always will be remembered as a nurturer, a kind hearted individual, and a joy to have around.
Erma leaves children Linda, Harold (Butch), Jim, Mary, Martha, Ed, and their spouses, 20 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren, brother John Pickrell, sisters Joye Howell and Sherli Horne and their families. She was preceded in death by son William Maxwell Laughlin (1967), grandson Brian William Schultz (2000), husband Harold Ebert Laughlin (2000), and sisters Ruth Killgore and Jane Droscher.
Internment was at Vashon Island Cemetery, Saturday, January 19, 2013. Contributions in memoriam can be made to Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Association, www.vashonheritage.org,
P.O. Box 723, Vashon, WA 98070.
Paid Obituary.
