Mark MacAfee Barron

1924 - 2015

Mark MacAfee Barron

1924 ~ 2014

At age 90, Mark Barron was a true Northwest character, an avid sportsman and a loving family man. Mark passed away one year ago today at his home from natural causes. His family wishes to share memories of him on this date.

Mark was born and raised in Seattle-Tacoma and lived as a teenager at Inglewood Country Club, where the Barron family lived on the 2nd floor, after his father Joe Barron bought the establishment in the 1930s. Mark and brother Jack were often put to work mowing the lawns.

During WWII, it was tough running a golf club, so Joe Barron arranged for the Coast Guard to make Inglewood their base camp site. This kept the club afloat through the war years, with the side benefit of keeping the lawns mowed - it became part of the service men's duties while bunking at the club. Mark had many memories of the service men and their rowdy ways and often remembered his mother "Mackie's" admonishments to stay away from those older boys.

Mark graduated from Lakeside High School in 1936 and was drafted into the Coast Guard, where he was a radio man on a cutter off Iceland. He received honorable discharge and attended the UW as a veteran, graduating with a business degree. In 1954 he married Jane Piper Barron and they raised three children. A generous family man, Mark spent many summers with his family camping in the Olympic Rain Forest or digging for clams at Ocean Shores.

Mark had a long career in insurance and property development. Into the 1980s, Mark and his brother Jack co-owned Inglewood Country Club and he was an investor of Sun Mountain Lodge in the Methow Valley, which his brother developed.

An avid sportsman, he played golf and tennis all his life and followed Husky games spanning 50 years, up to the last days of his life. He is survived by a son and daughter, two grandchildren, and many cousins. On the first anniversary of his passing, gifts in memory of Mark may be sent to Inglewood Country Club.