Clare BOLLINGER

Clare Jayne Bollinger was born in Bentley, Alberta Canada, on April 1, 1937, to Charles and Sarah (Burdick) Jayne. She died in hospice care on November 14, 2023. She moved to Spokane, WA, in 1939 and to Milan, WA, in 1947 where she attended Chattaroy Grade School and graduated from Riverside High School in 1955. She attended E.W.C.E. (E.W.U) Cheney Washington and was employed at Boeing Aircraft, Seattle. She met Tom Bollinger, her future husband, on a Greyhound Bus from Seattle to Spokane as they were both traveling home for Christmas, December 1956. Tom and Clare were married in March 1958. After graduating from the University of Washington, Tom was drafted and was stationed in Germany. Clare and Tom lived near Baumholder Army Base and traveled all over Europe camping from their 1951 Volkswagen Bug. After Tom's Army service, they shipped a new Volkswagen Bug to New York and traveled down the Atlantic Coast, across the country, and up the Pacific Coast on their way back to Seattle. During their early married life, they lived in Seattle, Ballard, Edmunds, and Spokane Valley. In 1975 Tom retired from corporate Texaco and they bought and managed the family apple orchard in Quincy, Washington.

Clare was an avid reader and life-long learner. She took classes in mechanical drawing, photography, art, permanent cosmetics, and personality types. She believed strongly in A Course in Miracles. She was a portrait artist of people and animals and a talented interior designer who had an extensive music collection of artists from opera, jazz, show tunes, folk, and rock.

In 2003 Clare and Tom were aboard a small plane when it crashed in East Wenatchee. They retired from the orchard business in 2010. When Tom died in 2011, Clare moved to Spokane Valley to be close to family. Clare was preceded in death by her parents, Charles and Sarah Burdick; and her husband, L. Thomas Bollinger; and wonderful aunts and uncles. She is survived by her three sons, Jeff (Anna) Bollinger Cheney, WA, Brad (Connie) Bollinger Kona, HI, and Curt Bollinger Sioux Center, IA; sister Jeanette (Del) Liljegren Spokane Valley, WA; and five grandchildren and many cousins, nieces and nephews. A family celebration of life will be held during the summer of 2024. Donations may be made in Clare's memory to KSPS Television, 3911 South Regal, Spokane, WA 99223.