June 2006
In Memoriam
Armonica Gilford, 54, died October 4, 2005. After taking degrees at Pepperdine and the University of Denver School of Law, she passed the bar exams of four states, including Washington. She worked for the Oregon Attorney General's Office for a decade before standing up at a Portland jam session and singing a few tunes she knew. At 44 she took up her childhood dream to be a blues singer and devoted the rest of her life to performance. Gilford also took up skiing with the same focus, declaring she would be a ski instructor. She achieved that, too. Survivors include her husband, Allen Litwiller, of Portland, Oregon.
Randall R. Walker, 56, died January 8, 2006. A longtime resident of the Yelm-Lacey-Tacoma area, he was Yelm city prosecutor for some time and also served as pro tem judge in Roy. A proud Scot, he took an interest in Scottish heritage and took up the bagpipes. Survivors include his wife, three children, mother, and sister.
Roger Wesley Jones Jr., 61, died December 27, 2005, in Seattle. A Seattle native and great-grandson of Senator Wesley L. Jones, who served in Congress between 1899 and 1933. Jones graduated from Princeton and UW Law School. His law practice focused on real estate and estate planning. Survivors include his wife, three children, and father.
Richard Hemstad, 72, died December 12, 2005, in Olympia. He graduated from St. Olaf College and the University of Chicago Law School, and moved to Washington in 1957. After a decade in private practice, he moved to Olympia as counsel to the Republican legislative caucus. Hemstad also served as counsel to Governor Daniel Evans, and was the first director of the state Office of Community Development in 1973. He was elected to the state Senate in 1980 and served one term. He later taught at UPS Law School. Governor Mike Lowry appointed Hemstad to the state Utilities and Transportation Commission in 1993; Governor Gary Locke reappointed him in 1998. He retired in February 2005. Survivors include his wife, four children, and two grandchildren.
Richard Levidow, 74, died December 9, 2005, in Seattle. Having made a successful career in corporate law in Manhattan, Levidow found himself burning out and retired to a farm in Pennsylvania at 59. After his first wife died, he took up an invitation to join his son, who was about to drive to Seattle to pursue a UW graduate degree. Levidow found he liked Seattle, joined the public defender's office, and spent over a decade in a happy second career in criminal defense. A second marriage followed, his interest in religion led him to convert to Catholicism, and he thrived on tennis and rose gardening. Family members said he never, ever got used to the Seattle habit of wishing people "have a nice day." "Rather sickening," his wife told an interviewer. "He didn't care for it at all." Survivors include his wife and one son.
John Gray Carroll, 81, died December 27, 2005, in Richland. A World War II Marine aviator, he entered UW Law School after the war and graduated in 1951. The day he was sworn in, he received notice his reserve unit had been activated, and he flew in Korea for two more years. Carroll practiced in Seattle with the late John Ehrlichman and moved his practice to the Tri-Cities when Ehrlichman joined President Nixon's staff in 1971. In 1976 he became a juvenile court commissioner for Benton and Franklin counties, retiring in 2004. He was active in the creation of the counties' adult and juvenile drug courts. Survivors include his wife, four children, nine grandchildren, and several great-grandchildren.
Eugene G. Schuster, 76, died January 13, 2006. A Pasco native, he spent his life in the Tri-Cities and was devoted to the Benton-Franklin Legal Aid Society's work. Schuster served in the Army between 1965 and 1967, reaching the rank of captain. His wife, six children and stepchildren, seven grandchildren, mother, and sister survive him.
Stanley Krause, 95, former Grays Harbor County prosecutor, died January 3, 2006, in Montesano. A Spokane native, he grew up in Seattle and earned his law degree from the UW in 1934. Two years later he moved to Montesano, then to Aberdeen. He served as prosecuting attorney between 1938 and 1942, resigning to serve in Army counterintelligence during World War II. He was re-elected in 1946. He retired from private practice in 1996. Survivors include three children, seven grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
Thomas D. Kelley, one of the three Kelley boys who became Washington lawyers, died January 19, 2006, in Seattle. He was 97. Born in New York City, he moved to Spokane with his family in 1911, when his father's childless uncle asked them to help him run a Palouse spread he homesteaded in 1872. Kelley attended Cornell and UW Law School before graduating from Gonzaga Law School in 1938. He practiced in Los Angeles and Seattle for an insurance company before starting a private practice in the 1940s. Kelley retired in 1992, and a year later set up shop on Bainbridge Island. He was proud of the family tradition of lawyering, and contributed reminiscences to Bar News on his late brothers, William V. and John F. Kelley, of Spokane. Survivors include four children, six grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.
Kathleen M. Taft, 98, died December 23, 2005, in Spokane. One of the state's longest-lived lawyers, she joined the Bar in 1936 after graduating from the UW Law School. In 1950, she became Spokane County's first family court commissioner, a post she held for 27 years. Taft was mentor to countless judges and lawyers, and her distinguished work in family law was widely and frequently honored. Taft's husband, one-time Spokane mayor and state legislator Willard Taft, died in 1971. Survivors include a number of nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews, and eight great-grandnieces and nephews. Always looking ahead, Taft worked until a week before suffering a stroke, and only a fortnight before a planned trip to Antarctica — the only continent she hadn't yet visited.
Walter Thomas "Walt" Greenaway, 73, attended Pennsylvania State University prior to joining the United States Army in 1953, where he was stationed in West Germany for several years during The Cold War. Upon returning to civilian life, Greenaway graduated from Colorado State University in 1959 and in 1965 obtained his law degree from the UW School of Law. He was a King County deputy prosecuting attorney and later spent three years as an administrator for the federally funded Alcohol Safety Action Project in King County. In 1975, he helped create the Clallam-Jefferson Public Defender office in Port Angeles and served as both its administrator as well as its chief criminal defense lawyer. Beginning in 1979, Greenaway served as a Clallam County Superior Court and District Court judge pro tem and court commissioner, including presiding for more than two years as the county's juvenile court judge. He was respected for the wisdom of his decisions and the fairness evident in how he conducted his courtroom. In 1985, Greenaway became a founding partner in the present-day Greenaway, Gay & Tulloch law firm. He was involved as a coach for Little League baseball and soccer teams, served as president and board member of the Clallam County Community Alcohol Center, was the legal advisor for Koinenia Ministries, and served as a member of a Clallam County Planning Department advisory group. In the spring of 1992, Greenaway officially retired for the last time and was honored with a gala retirement party attended by well over 200 friends, colleagues, and family members who came from far and wide to join in "Walt Greenaway Night — A Celebration of the Gentleman Lawyer." Greenaway is survived by is wife, Winnie; children Rob, Jeff, Ken, and Denise; and six grandchildren. Born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on February 2, 1932, Greenaway died June 25, 2005.
Wayne R. Parker Jr.
As remembered by his son Brian Parker
Wayne Parker graduated from the UW School of Law in 1952. In 1954, Wayne and Myron L. "Mike" Borawick, another young attorney, opened a law practice in a one-story, ramshackle building on Pacific Highway South near the Spanish Castle, a well-known ballroom of that time. In those days attorneys were prohibited from advertising, so the enterprising young lawyers had Wayne run for the U.S. Congress and later for insurance commissioner, which allowed them to get their office's name before the public through political campaigning. The plan was a success, and the young lawyers were soon engaged in a busy practice.
In the early 1960s, Parker & Borawick moved across the street into the Puget Sound National Bank Building, where Wayne stayed until 1989. During this time, in addition to his private practice, Wayne also served as attorney for the city of Tukwila from 1972 to 1975, and was a charter member of the South King County Bar Association. While at the bank there were also several bank robberies, one in which the armed robber exited through Wayne's office.
Mike Borawick died in 1973 and Wayne continued on alone until I joined him in 1982. In 1989, Wayne and I moved the office a mile south on Pacific Highway where Wayne continued to work until December 30, 2005, the day before he suffered a stroke.
Born January 16, 1925, in Tacoma, Wayne grew up in Puyallup, graduating from Puyallup High School in 1943. During World War II, Wayne served with the 503rd Parachute Regimental Combat Team in the Philippines. While growing up, Wayne took up boxing and boxed in the Army and as a prize fighter in the Portland and Seattle/Tacoma area both before the war and for several years after. He had many friends from his days in the ring he had stayed in touch with, including former middle-weight champion Al Hostak, who would frequently drop by the office and reminisce about his fights with Freddie Steele, Harry Matthews, and Tony Zale.
Wayne truly loved practicing law. He always maintained that he had wanted to be a lawyer ever since a young boy and rarely spoke of retirement. Wayne R. Parker Jr. died February 12, 2006, from complications following a stroke. He was 81.
