Gladys Para

Gladys Para was born Gladys Cecilia Hutchinson on Sept. 25, 1928, in Spokane, Washington (in the early morning hours) at Sacred Heart Hospital, to Mildred Kohlhagen Hutchinson, German and second generation, and George Clement Hutchinson, British and first generation from New Zealand. Her father worked at the dam at Little Falls in Spokane when mom was born, and after briefly moving back to her mother’s family in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, they returned to Spokane where she and her brother George Ronald grew up until she passed fifth grade. Her father, not yet a U.S. citizen, worked for the WPA during the Depression until he got a job with the Milwaukee Railroad working in the electrical substation and they moved to Fife, Washington for her sixth- and seventh-grade years. Milwaukee transferred her father to Cle Elem where Gladys and her brother Ron graduated high school. Gladys, through her will and the support of her family, her friends called her “Hutch”, went on to WSU and got a secondary high school English teaching degree with a minor in history while her brother Ron served for the U.S. military in the Korean War. In her 19th year between school, she spent one summer working at a dude ranch in Gallatin Gateway, Montana where she met Slim Pickins. She was proud of that. She finished her teaching degree and took a summer internship in Othello where she boarded at Lila Hodson’s on Cedar Street and there met John Para. They married and had eight children and all the while Gladys fed her love of geography, geology, history, and all that was the Columbia Basin. She gave many decades to her passions of community, (Othello Chamber, Migrant Daycare, Columbia Basin Health District, Othello Museum, Othello Outlook, the Old Hotel), local native history, (teaching all third-grade classes each spring), and the Catholic Church (teaching CCD). Our mom was a writer. She wrote historical columns for the Othello Outlook and then later for the Gig Harbor Gateway chronicling the historic stories and pictures that told of those important early 20th century pioneers. She was active in studying and researching all aspects of the Great Missoula Floods. Finally, she took on a project moving a caboose from the Milwaukee Railroad and creating an interpretive museum that sits today in her stead at the Old Hotel in Othello, Washington. Gladys never wanted to quit her projects and when her health made that be so, it was hard for her. She had many good and positive friends; they did many great and important things together … all the way to the end. She had a husband she cared for and loved for 30 years, her children she cared for and loved so deeply all of her days. She had wonderful caregivers and staff at Coventry House who loved her like a mom and grandma, some from the beginning, through to the end of her days. That love, we will never forget.

Gladys had a good, long, and rich life. She was thankful and she knew that she had been blessed to live here, to have been born here, to have given her life here in this Columbia Basin. She was a reader, a writer, an editor; she loved the English language and devoted most of her life trying to understand it … she shared many truisms with us, many ... Rest in peace, Mom, Gladys, rest in peace ... your legacy will live on. She is survived by her oldest living friends LaVonne Rush and Joyce Lund; her sister-in-law Kathryne Hutchinson of Monroe, Louisiana; and her eight children Jake (Marlies), Amy, Steve, Dan (Monica), Mike (Liz), Molly (Rich), Robin (Wayner) and Joan (Bill); her grandchildren Matt, Levi, Arienne, Marika, Ali, Annie, Lucas, Tony, Zack, Andrew, Tyson, Mick, Chelsea, Sam, Hannah, Andrew, Nile, Rio and Noah and her great-grandchildren Tori, Alice, Mhari, Mila, Tui, Aya, Francesca, Vincent, young Roman and baby Jackson.….many loving nieces and nephews who gave her time and tribute. We wish to thank the wonderful caregivers and staff of Coventry Court, and also Assured Hospice. She leaves a legacy for her beloved community and home, Othello. We will have a tribute, a memorial, later next summer, July 16 at the Iron Works in Othello for Gladys…. Any contributions you might wish to give should go to The Old Hotel, or The Othello Museum of Othello, Washington in her name.