December 12, 1923 - May 19, 2016
John E. Sonneland Obituary (Age 92) John E. Sonneland was born on December 12, 1923 in Norfolk, NE, and died May 19, 2016. He grew up as the youngest of three kids in Bellingham, WA, where his Dad was a doctor. Then a full-ride to Harvard, then Northwestern Medical School (where he met his future wife, Holly), with marriage and wartime service in the Navy following. Surgical training and mandated U.S. Public Health Service stops in Manhattan; Portland, ME; Chicago; Mobile, AL; and then Moses Lake and finally, in the late 1950's, Spokane. They would have five children. John had a pioneering spirit. While establishing his surgical practice in Spokane, he opened the city's first self-service gas station (resulting in anonymous calls from a competitor to Holly, threatening her and the kids if John didn't raise his prices). As a surgeon, John was among the first to use a gastrointestinal scope, was at the forefront of surgical weight loss operations and wrote some thirty articles for surgical journals over the years. He led the charge in the mid-1960's to establish a medical school in Spokane (a few decades early). In the 1970's he opened Courtesy Communications, originally a telephone answering and paging service, from which he successfully anticipated the cell phone revolution, obtaining initial cell phone frequencies in four U.S. cities and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Politically, he was a national board member of the government reform group Common Cause, taking the group's key issue and applying it to a successful campaign to impose term limits on Spokane city council members. All the while, he bought numerous parcels of undeveloped land around the South Hill and downtown. He was always looking down the road for "What's next?"John demonstrated a genuine interest in the lives of those from outside his social sphere. One Christmas day he had a patient who shared his love of classical music, but the man didn't have the money for a stereo or music. So John gave his patient a Christmas gift of a tape deck and a stack of cassette tapes onto which John had recorded a number of classical pieces they both enjoyed. John also had a newspaper carrier, a single mother with imperfect English. She was fired for what John deemed a minor offense, so he helped her write a letter of explanation to her supervisor, and organized a petition to have her successfully reinstated. And it was John's idea to welcome to the family home a Hmong refugee family for a season (encouraging Holly to learn to cook what was familiar to them), and provided a plot of land for them and others in that community to grow vegetables on for many years thereafter. In later years, especially after the loss of his oldest daughter Jamie while in her mid-40s, John grew in his appreciation for what is most important in life. He loved large family gatherings with his four surviving children and spouses (Robin/Joe, John/Chris, Stewart/Patty and Andrew/Krisi), 17 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, hosting a reunion at Sunriver every other summer. Christmas was always a high point on the calendar, with John, accompanied by his daughter-in-law Chris, personally shopping for a gift for everyone on his ever-growing list. As John grew older his gratitude grew deeper. And unrivaled at the top of his thankfulness list was Holly, his wife of 65 years until she died in December 2013. The only phrase he repeated more than "I've had such a wonderful life!" was "I'm glad I got her to say, 'I do!'" They made a great team. Depending on the endeavor, Holly was usually an enthusiastic equal partner (community involvement), often a good sport (hundreds of weekends on their sailboat) and sometimes a long-suffering wife (five losing congressional campaigns). John honored her before her children ("Mom gave up a promising writing career at Life magazine because it was more important for her to stay at home with you kids"). She was his frequent, respected and capable editor (John fired off letters all the time: to the newspaper, to government officials, to companies....), and chief diplomatic advisor on a variety of fronts (she didn't always prevail, unfortunately). And in many ways their marriage was a model to which their children aspire: encouraging the other to pursue areas of interest (including John's support of Holly's extensive volunteer efforts), affectionate (till the end, Holly would come over to him while in his favorite chair and sit on his lap), playful (Holly mentioned she liked Mentos mints, so John bought at least 20 rolls and hid them around the house for her to find as she opened various drawers and closets), time together (in addition to many terrific family vacations, the two always made time to get away for regular vacations, just the two of them), and their shared Christian faith (regulars at First Presbyterian, supporters of Young Life and Camp Spalding, prayer together before dinner each night). He will be missed by many in this life, who already look forward to a joyful reunion in the life to come.A memorial service will be held on Thursday, June 2, 5:00 pm at First Presbyterian Church. Memorial donations may be made in his name to Camp Spalding for a nature center under construction, to be named in memory of John and Holly Sonneland. � To plant a beautiful memorial tree in memory of John, please visit our Tree Store. Read more Events MAY 19
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