Daughter, Debra
    When we came home without mom for the first time last Sunday, there  a surprise for me laying on her cedar chest.  It was something I hadn't seen since I was a child, my Ceremonial Gown from my days as a Campfire Girl.  The gown is more than sixty years old.  It was mom's when she was a Campfire Girl.  The Campfire slogan, "WOHELO," represented a philosophy that was part of her and became part of me.  The letters in WOHELO are WO for work, HE for health, and LO for love.

    Mom was never idle.  She kept her house neat.  She acted thoughtfully and maintained a discipline that influenced those around her in a most harmonious way.  She understood that the way to live a meaningful life was to work, to use your time to do things for others, and take every opportunity to make someone else happy.  Mom loved people.  She taught me, “There’s something good in everyone.”  Mom was virtuous.  She was the wife of one man – being with him, taking care of him, and keeping her family together were her highest priorities. Mom was the heart of our family.  

   Mom was very innovative in the way she helped her children become physically, mentally, and emotionally strong.  When she helped me memorize my multiplication tables, it was like a dance. We drilled math facts while we washed dishes.  I still hear her singing, "Eight times eight is sixty-four, six eights are forty-eight."  Mom made math fun.

    Believing every person has unique gifts and creative abilities, mom encouraged us to develop our talents.  When I was in the third grade, she took me to the yardage store andhelped me pick out fabric to make a type of dress called a chemise.  It had lots of square blocks of bright colors on it.  We bought a Simplicity pattern and she had me lay it all out by myself.  I read the directions and planned the project, cut everything out carefully, and pinned the pieces in place before I sewed.  She taught me that any job worth doing was worth doing well, and she praised me for my patience.  I thought wearing that dress to school was an expression of my own creativity, but it was really an expression of my mother's vision and love.

    Life was always an adventure for mom, and she loved to travel with us.  When we were children, we traveled to Mexico for spring vacations, and we spent summer weekends at the beach cabin.  When my brothers and I were adults, too, she was always ready to embark on adventures with us.  I confided to her my plans to elope with Wayne in Las Vegas, after all, I was 25 years old.  When I got there, she and dad were waiting with a box of minute rice.  Mom was so much fun.

    Mom always loved Hawaii.  She and dad lived there before I was born, and she always kept the Aloha spirit with her.  I remember her wearing Hawaiian prints around the house and playing a recording of the Hawaiian Wedding Song.  Mom and dad came to Hawaii on their way home from the middle east when Wayne and I were there.  Wayne and I spent a beautiful evening with them dining in the open air under the thatched roof of Buzz’s Steak House.

     It was such fun meeting mom and dad at different places around the world that we began to refer to our travels as a rendezvous game.  Since I was an Air Traffic Control Specialist, I was authorized to ride in the jump seats with air carrier crews for familiarization trips.  One year mom and dad met me in Japan.  We spent a week shopping in the stores of Tokyo, touring the country by train, visiting temples and waterfalls, and sampling the cuisine.  Another year, we did Germany.  When I stepped off the plane in Frankfurt, there were mom and dad.  We drove the autobahn all over southern Germany.  Some of the highlights of that trip were visiting the Porsche and Mercedes factories, the cathedral of Ulm, and medieval Rothenberg, where a notorious ancestor of Wayne’s once saved the town.

    Mom was such a good sport about everything.  She and dad flew to the annual experimental aircraft association fly-in at Oshkosh, Wisconsin one August, and camped in the grass under the plane the whole week.  I rode up in the FAA’s Gulfstream on the first day and back on the last day, so I got to spend the whole week with my folks, meeting and visiting aviation enthusiasts from all over the country.  We even had a tour of the city of Oshkosh one night when mom twisted her ankle hiking across a dark field with dad and me.  On the way back from the hospital, our driver took a side trip for us to snoop around an early house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, another of our favorite pastimes together.  Having an artistic spirit herself, mom always enjoyed seeing the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright.  We’ve been to many of his buildings across the country.

    Because love and family was absolute in mom’s life, she was touched by the history of her ancestors.  It meant a lot to her to find out where her family had lived as far back as the eighteenth century. On one of her visits to Virginia, we found the old Huffman home built of brick made by hand on their own farm a few miles south of Luray, as well as the original log cabin still standing after 250 years.  The Huffmans were very industrious and innovative people.

    One other adventure with her we’ll never forget, was the time she and dad flew to New York state and met us in Norwich. We were looking for the property dad’s ancestor, Benoni Plymate, had farmed in the area.  We pitched tents at nearby Bowman Lake.  Travis and Barrett, being little boys, couldn’t wait to hike around the lake.  Mom was an unbelievable sport, and spent about two hours exploring the heavily wooded trail with us, even climbing over fallen trees to press on.  She sat around the campfire with us, and even ate Wayne’s cooking, expressing nothing but enjoyment and delight.

    I’ll always remember the last day I saw my mother.  We flew home from southern California on July 2, and when we touched down on the runway in our airplane, there she was next to dad at the edge of the taxiway smiling and waving.

    We’ll all miss her dearly.

Lovong husband, Glenn
Thank you all for being here to share the memories of Erral.  For almost 59 years she has been the dearest thing to my heart.  She has been my stabilizer … my co-pilot from almost the first time we met.

My memories of her begin with the first time I saw her.  I can never forget.  She was 15.  It was at a shake shop near our neighborhood movie theater.  She had her back to me, standing at the counter, in slacks, dressed in a kind of uniform--dark green.  All the other girls were wearing skirts.  She was different.  She stood out.

When she turned around, there was even more difference.  She was prettier than the other girls. 

Later, I learned her name.

It was Erral.  This made her even more different from the rest.

And, she worked at the theater … the reason for the slacks.

I was intrigued.  This quality of being different from the rest was the first thing I found that made her so special.

As we came to know each other, her adventurous spirit and spontaneity began to show.  She was willing to try most anything; she was cooperative and a very good sport.  I almost never heard her say no.

I was beginning to learn that Erral’s appeal was more than skin-deep.  We communicated well, and found we liked the same things. 

Soon, I wanted to spend all my time with her, and she with me. From going steady to being engaged didn’t take long. I gave her an engagement ring when she was 17.  It  wasn’t much, but she didn’t need much.  Material things were not very important to her.  It was love that counted.

She was my “girl back home” when I was in the Navy.  Our days of separation made us yearn to see each other even more, and our feelings were totally mutual.

We stayed connected by writing letters.  Her letters were filled with reassurances, and she had beautiful handwriting.  It was always a thrill to see an incoming envelope she had addressed … there was one almost every day, and usually sealed with a kiss.

While I was away, there was a terrible car accident and Erral was badly injured.  She had a fractured pelvis.  The news was devastating. I wanted to be with her but there was nothing I could do.  The letters kept coming, though, and there were never any complaints; just concerns for me and how I was doing.  Always thinking of others, her unselfishness and compassion were shining through.

Erral liked seeing me in uniform and especially in whites, the summer uniform where I was stationed in Florida.  Once, on leave in Portland, we went downtown, me in my jaunty white sailor suit, proud to have Erral on my arm.  Before long, the Shore Patrol stopped us and began haranguing me for being out of uniform.  Whites were not authorized in the northwest.  Only blues.  Mostly because of Erral’s good looks, and my ignorance, we were spared from having me thrown in the brig.  Erral was not phased in the least, and I got off with only a warning.  Her presence had saved me.  What a team we were beginning to be. 

My folks highly approved of Erral; they thought she was a real prize.  For me, she seemed much more than I deserved.  Deserving or not, I wanted to be with her, and she with me. 

We wanted to be married.  Eloping seemed an expedient solution, and we took out a marriage license in Vancouver, Washington.  The Justice of the Peace wanted to make sure we knew what we were doing, but was ready to perform the ceremony.  This slight hesitation made us pause and re-think what we were about to do. Was it right to take her from her folks without their knowledge and consent?  We backed off, and this was my first realization of Erral’s strong commitment to family.

We got our folks' blessings and set a date of May 25, 1947, this time with an Oregon marriage license.  Erral did most of the planning.  She picked her attendants, and I picked mine … all with mutual discussion and agreement.  Teamwork again.  Always aimed at each other’s happiness.

She was thrilled and so was I when we could sign at last as Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Plymate.  Dinner on our wedding night was at a simple roadside restaurant and we ordered together … fried chicken.  It was the first of many decisions we agreed to as husband and wife, with almost no dissent on either side.  We seemed to have e.s.p.  There was never disagreement. Our tastes were intertwined and each supported the other. Our thinking went hand in hand on all matters, be it visual, verbal, or otherwise.

On our honeymoon we were caught in a storm while boating on a lake. The wind picked up and the clouds went dark.  We headed back to shore as fast as our little outboard would take us.  Erral was hanging on tight--not afraid--trusting me to bring her safely to shore.  We made it; we weathered the storm.  This was the first time she showed the trust she placed in me to bring her safely through threatening times.  She expressed often that she always wanted to be with me and if anything bad were to happen, she would be at my side.  She was my co-pilot for life.

She was always at my side, willing to go anywhere, and to try just about anything. Her spontaneity was amazing, and her bravery just as much.  She risked giving birth to our children in spite of the pelvic injury from her accident. 

She moved with me wherever I went, be it Eugene, Salem, or San Francisco.  And Erral came to me when I was in Hawaii, in Jordan, and even Kuwait.  She kept our separations minimal and was always ready for adventure at the drop of a hat.  She was the heart of our family.  Never a bitter word, she looked for the best in everything and was incredibly intuitive.  She was never afraid to fly and was with me for thousands of hours on our many flights; even getting her own logbook and soloing when we lived in Salem. 

Erral loved to sew.  She was an expert seamstress.  It was a talent she learned from her mother and passed on to our daughter.  She kept us clothed in special, distinctive shirts.  Exquisitely tailored, and each with a theme; they are our pride to wear.  And, they are exclusively ours … with one exception.  Jane Garvey, the FAA Administrator, has one that Erral made for her.

Whenever I was at the airport, Erral was at the airport.  When we went to a convention, Erral was with me … at the technical sessions, not the wives functions.  When I was working on our plane or building on a house, Erral was with me, helping.  We were a team … inseparable.  But she was the stronger of the two and she’s what made it work.  A loving team … crafting our three beautiful children who she taught by example and through her amazing wisdom.  They will carry on.

She was a remarkable woman; devoted, talented, generous, caring, uncomplaining, and always with a most positive outlook.  She was special.  Very special.  Never afraid to live beyond the norm, she was my life partner.  And the best wife a man could ever have.

We’ve said goodbye so many times, but always to return.  I find this much the same, because I know it’s only temporary and that we’ll be joined again in time. 

So, goodbye for now … Erral, I’ll love you forever.

                    Though my heart has taken wing, my spirit stays with you.

                    Don’t grieve for me; for my mission’s been fulfilled.  I’m free
                    to fly to parts unknown, where we will meet again.  The skies
                    are clear and smooth ahead, and I am cleared to go.

                    Please let the memories echo softly of bright and sunny days,
                    and all our laughing times together in so many different ways.

                    By soaring on your memories, my heart will find its course.
                                                                                         - Claude Plymate

Interment
Willamette National Cemetery, Portland, Oregon
- Taps played by Barrett Nutsch