Final Shreves reunion at Crescent Bar helps with matriarch's grieving

CRESCENT BAR - Sandra Shreves and her family celebrated their final Crescent Bar reunion last weekend. Surprisingly, Sandra is not sad about it.

All of Sandra's memories of Crescent Bar include her husband John, who died in January. New family reunions and new memories as a widow will take place at her new home in Florida.

"This place is my husband," Sandra said, wiping away tears. "I don't want to be here without him."

Except for the one last time last weekend. It was a weekend that helped Sandra heal from the loss. The talk was about John's life and not his death.

"The kids and grandkids were all here for me," Sandra said. "It was just good for everybody to get together."

The John Shreves family has been coming to Crescent Bar for years. First it was John, then John and Sandra and then a growing family.

"This was the place to come for 30 years," Sandra said. "The kids grew up here. The grandkids grew up here."

"We all learned to water ski here," one of the grandchildren shouted from another room.

John, who lived in Issaquah back then, found Crescent Bar before he even met Sandra. He was on a hunting trip around 1975. When he brought Sandra to see it and his hunting trailer later, he feared she'd be unhappy.

"All the way over here, he said, 'You're not going to like it,'" Sandra said. "I loved it. Being from Florida, I like the water. In Bellevue, we lived at Newport Shores."

John had his trailer on an inland lot he purchased when the east channel lots were still a plan. The purchase deal included the opportunity to claim a lot along the water later.

For a while John and Sandra moved around the park as lots were developed and sold. It seemed they were on a new lot each time they came over from western Washington.

"In 1981 they said (the channel bank) was stable, and we moved in," Sandra said.

That year, Sandra's parents bought lot 219 but didn't establish a home. The Shreves put a Teton on 218 and moved the Kenskill from elsewhere in the park to 219. About 1990, Sandra's mother, who was widowed, gave the Shreves 219.

In 1994, the Shreves moved a park model to 219 and built an addition. Both were retired, and the family was growing.

"We needed room," Sandra said.

Things went smoothly over the years, with reunion after reunion. Then in 2008 things started to change. The Shreves bought a home at The Villages in Central Florida so Sandra could be closer to her mother, who had moved into a nursing home.

"It was getting time for us to quit motorhoming," she said.

In addition, the Shreves' children wanted them to give up their home in Mexico, where drug-related violence was on a steady rise.

The Shreves were flying from Florida to western Washington in the spring of 2009 when John informed Sandra he was feeling ill and a big loss of energy. On June 4 he was diagnosed with cancer and informed he had about 30 days to live.

"He took it very well," Sandra said. "He said he had lived a good life."

John outlived the prognosis and died on Jan. 25, 2011. In pre-death arrangements he selected a Robert Test quote through which he asked his family and friends to bury his faults, his weaknesses and his prejudices, give his sins to the devil and soul to God, burn the rest and scatter the ashes to the wind to help the flowers grow.

The family did just that, Sandra said.

Now Sandra will move permanently to The Villages. She will look after her mother, who is 95, and herself.

Sandra was recently diagnosed with a bone marrow and blood cancer the doctors say she can't defeat. She takes chemotheraphy seven days once a month.

"I do get tired, but I don't get sick," she said.

Sandra doesn't know her prognosis. She doesn't want to know. She plans to "live" whatever time she has. That is one of the reasons she will stay at The Villages.

"There's nothing for me here," she said "I can't play golf now that I have cancer. At The Villages I play cards from 5:00-9:00 each evening. I play Mah Jonng and will start playing bridge again. The last time I played I was in college. I haven't played in 50 years, but they give lessons."

As for the family reunion, it will continue. Only the location will be changed. Sandra will host her family at The Villages next year and every year she has after that.

"It's a wonderful place," she said. "And the kids all love Florida."