John Gabriel

1965 - 2023

John Gabriel

Not without his faults, John was a good dad, friend, husband, boss, son, uncle, brother, writer, skier, swimmer, and an expert parallel parker. He was a storyteller who appreciated that sometimes exaggeration is required, and he was the first person to lend a hand when help was needed. John passed away February 28, 2023 at Samaritan Evergreen Hospice House in Albany, Oregon.

He was born April 17, 1965 in Fort Wayne, Indiana and spent his early childhood in Bellevue, Washington and Whippany, New Jersey before the family settled in Carson, Washington. There he found a family within the community while his newly single mom worked and worried about his older teenage siblings. He always appreciated the lifelong friends he made in Skamania County and the families and teachers who included him in their lives. He was a handsome kid with lots of girlfriends, who hitch hiked to school and always had a job. He was known to water ski on the Columbia before school with his friend Steve Bumstead, and cut class to downhill ski on Mt Hood in the winter with his brother Kevin. A dedicated athlete, he was the first four-year varsity athlete in over 20 years on his high school football team.

At Willamette University he double majored and received degrees in Environmental Science and History. He was an excellent writer, and his senior History paper The European Frontier:

The displacement of nature as a result of the expansion of human settlement, was chosen to be published in the selective WU Journal of Student Scholarship. While pursuing a masters degree at OSU he worked with Bob Frenkel in the Geosciences Department and wrote A Modified Synoptic Analysis of the Status of Oregon's Willamette Valley Wetlands. He was a relentless environmentalist.

He met his future wife, Karen, on a blind date while still in high school. They married 7 years later and had two daughters Annika and Alina. John and Karen ran a computer programming business together in Corvallis (sometimes referred to as the third child) for 25 years. His gregarious, competitive nature, and inability to sit still made owning his own business an excellent fit for John. And let's be honest,he enjoyed telling people what to do. He rode his bike to work rain or shine and didn't abide by a dress code, wearing cargo shorts further into the winter and earlier in the spring than reasonable. He cultivated lasting relationships with clients and employees. His favorite client was the Corvallis Fire Department. Collaborating with local firefighters he created an app that helped them do their job and enhance their safety that is still in use today.

He loved his mom, siblings, nieces and nephews, in-laws and outlaws and was the instigator and organizer of family parties and multi-generational trips.

John is survived by his wife of 33 years, Karen, daughters Annika and Alina, brothers Kevin and Richard, his mother Alice, and many nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his father Richard and sister Barbara.

He was generous with his money, time, and love. He did not let his complete lack of previous soccer experience hold him back from being a supportive soccer dad, leading him to volunteer as coach of his daughter's AYSO soccer teams. Which at one point snowballed into coaching three teams simultaneously despite having only two daughters. If a player could not afford the club fees he paid or discreetly rallied the other parents to contribute. He was an empathetic man and wanted to help vulnerable kids he encountered through his daughters and coaching. After years of concern from his family and unsatisfactory medical appointments he was diagnosed with probable younger- onset Alzheimer's disease at Oregon Health and Sciences University at the age of fifty-three. Wanting to fight back against a disease with no cure, he volunteered for any Alzheimer's research project that would enroll him. Consequently, there were frequent trips to OHSU to submit to sometimes humiliating cognitive tests and painful data collection procedures.

He had a treasured group of friends from Corvallis Masters Swimming who enriched his life tremendously and he was an avid open-water swimmer. It would be negligent not to mention the beauty of his butterfly stroke. He participated in open water swims all over the Pacific Northwest, California and Hawaii and swim trips to Greece and Croatia. With his good friend Jack Istok, he swam across countless (actually Jack probably does have a count) Oregon lakes. Diving to the bottom of lakes and rivers to pick up trash, stashing it in the escort boat or even in his Speedo if no other option was available.

There will be a Celebration of Life for John at 2 pm on Sunday June 4, 2023 at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis.

Donations may be made in his memory to the Oregon Lakes Association scholarship fund https://www.oregonlakes.org/Scholarship