Inez Boffey
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Inez Irene Boffey went home to be with the Lord on January 17th, 2021. She was 93. She passed having never eaten even one bite of fish, and she liked it that way.
Born to Vernon and Ethel (McConnell) Clark on September 28, 1927, in LaGrange, IN, Inez grew up on a farm with seven siblings. Shy in the classroom but bold on the court, Inez earned the nickname "Salem Center Flash" for her high school basketball achievements. Her competitive edge never dulled.
After high school, Inez moved to Fort Wayne, IN, to work as a secretary. One evening at a YMCA dance class, she met who would be her husband of 62 years, Albert Edward Boffey. Since he was finishing engineering school, their date nights often consisted of Inez typing his papers?followed by dancing together in the morgue where Al had free boarding. Not the liveliest date nights.
After marrying, Al and Inez moved to Cleveland, OH, where they had their first two sons, Greg and Larry. Soon after, they moved to Seattle, where they had their third son, Dan. There, Inez was a stay-at-home mom, active in the PTA and her local bowling league.
In 1964, Al and Inez purchased the Skylark Motel in Skykomish, which they ran for 24 years. Al would travel home from Seattle on the weekends (he worked at Boeing), meaning Inez single-handedly ran the motel and raised the boys during the weekdays. But that didn't stop her from having a little fun. She was very involved in the Skykomish community and beyond. Known on the CB radio airwaves as "Busybee," she spent many evenings chatting with truckers to make sure they got safely over Steven's Pass. She was often thinking of others?and liked a little gossip, too.
Upon Al's retirement, he and Inez sold the motel and moved to Lynnwood and then to Mount Vernon, where they would live until Al's passing in 2013. Inez then moved to her own cottage at Creekside, a senior living community in Burlington.
For the last three decades of Inez's life, she invested in her grandchildren (Andy, David, Jessica, Cameron, Dane, Melanie, and Matthew) and twelve great-grandchildren. She was quick to bake birthday cakes, change diapers, and feed endless supplies of Eggo waffles. She also enjoyed frequent visits from her family, close friends Roger and Marie Skistad, and Dan's longtime best friend Mike McCausland, whom she often referred to as her fourth son. Greg, her eldest, came and did puzzles with her weekly after Al's passing, and though he kept her puzzle stock well-supplied, gift-giving was easy with her: another puzzle or a good novel would do.
Inez was a woman of peculiar tastes and talents. She hated cheese, liked her meat overdone, and once returned from a cruise buffet line with just bread and grapes. She was a master pie-maker and furious Mexican Train player (one knew not to cross her). She once fashioned a megaphone from a paper cup at a Sonics game so she could give the refs several pieces of her mind. She scheduled her few outings around Mariner's games and NASCAR races, unwilling to miss seeing Jeff Gordon in action?or even in inaction, as she kept a lifesize cardboard cutout of him in the living room. She also called to announce the good news of the birth of his first child. This was Inez: keeping tabs on the goings-on of her people, whether they knew it or not.
Inez is dearly missed by her family and friends, whom she loved so well. She is preceded in death by her husband, parents, and siblings Jack Clark, Vernon Clark Jr, Bob Clark, Betty Clark, Bonnie Pierce, and Pat Wolf. She is survived by her sons and their wives, Greg (Mary Ann), Larry (Marcia), and Dan (Debbie), their families, and her sister Jo Brock. Upon her request, there will be no services.