LeJeune Whitney, July 25, 1921 - August 20, 2003
Sourdough starts sent by Carl were sent from the home of LeJeune Whitney in Sequim, Washington, who shared her home with Carl during the last ten years of his life, and who had been his wife at an earlier time.
LeJeune Whitney died suddenly and, it is thought, painlessly, in consequence of an aneurysm on August 20, 2003, at age 82, in Sequim, Washington. The following obituary was composed by her niece, Frances Whitney, and is reproduced here with permission.
LeJeune Whitney was born in Springville, Utah, the third child and only daughter of Lewis Jotham Whitney and Frances Evaline Henderson Whitney. She grew up surrounded by friends and cousins in Springville in the old family home on Main Street, and she graduated from Springville High School.
After a brief stint at Brigham Young University, she proudly served our nation during World War Two as an officer in the Army Air Corps, where she rose through the ranks and broke traditional barriers, contributing to the expansion of the women’s movement. After the end of the war, she married Carl Thornton Griffith, and the new couple made their home in Oregon, where she graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in journalism.
LeJeune and Carl became the parents of one child, Carl Whitney Griffith. Although they were divorced in 1968, LeJeune and Carl remained friends through LeJeune’s brief marriage to Marton Ackerman and Carl’s remarriage. They raised their child together and in later years once again maintained a household together, where they cared for each other until Carl’s death in 2000.
LeJeune had a heart filled with kindness and a brain bursting with ideas. Her interests and professional involvements were almost too many to list; she could and did do anything and everything. She edited the National Chinchilla Breeder magazine, she worked for the Salt Lake Tribune, she wrote and published her own books, she established a craft supply import firm and a graphics shop, and she spent many years on the corporate staff of Hewlett-Packard corporation. At an age when many of her contemporaries were quietly retiring, she embraced the computer age. LeJeune excelled at everything she did, and was always anxious and willing to share, help, and counsel with others to lead them to excellence also.
Her many nieces and nephews and the children of her friends will always remember LeJeune as a guide, an inspiration, and a second mother. She cared about every one and strove to help each person’s creativity and interests develop and bloom. LeJeune had friends all over the world, from all walks of life, and of all ages, from older people to her contemporaries to little children.