Eileen Ferguson Kaiser

Eileen passed away on the approaches to her 97th birthday at home in Bellingham in the early morning of December 18th, 2013. She was born in Philadelphia, PA, to William Norman Ferguson and Miriam Powell Ferguson. She attended Wilson College in Chambersburg, PA, on an academic scholarship, studying the classical languages of Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, while earning a baccalaureate in English literature. She met her future husband, Robert Frank Kaiser, at a dance her mother organized for young doctors at the University of Pennsylvania. Robert always thanked his stars he owned a tuxedo, which Mrs. Ferguson made de rigueur for the dance, whereas his two roommates could not attend for lack of appropriate attire. Subsequently he always counseled possessing a comprehensive wardrobe. After a short engagement, the couple were married in Germantown, PA, on June 1st, 1940, then relocated to the Panama Canal Zone, where Robert was in his residency at Gorgas Army Hospital. The joy surrounding the birth of their first child Emily, was somewhat attenuated by commotion in the hospital as the staff hastily erected blackout barriers and put the facility on a wartime footing. It was the early morning of the 7th of December, 1941. Robert, an ROTC graduate and reservist, was informed he was to report immediately to a horse-drawn artillery unit in the North African desert, unless of course he’d rather transfer to Gorgas for the war’s duration. In order to remain in the Canal Zone (an army base), Eileen needed to find employment, so she took up work as an executive secretary to the local director of Pan Am Airways.
The war having run its course, Dr. Kaiser traversed the West searching for the perfect community in which to raise a family before purchasing a practice in ophtho-otolaryngology in Bellingham, and began his practice of medicine in early 1946, aided by his expertise in corneal transplantation, then a little-known procedure. Eileen subsequently bore four sons (trying for a second girl) while becoming an active leader in the community: the Whatcom Museum, the Bellingham Library Board, the YWCA, and the St. Luke’s Women’s Auxiliary. She served as a Cub Scout Den Mother for her boys’ programs, and was a member of the Monday Club, Thirty and Six, P.E.O., and the Edgemoor Garden Club. She especially enjoyed her poker and bridge groups. Eileen contributed generously to a variety of charitable organizations over the years, while sponsoring the children of a poor Honduran family living on the Caribbean island of Guanaja to a boarding school education on the mainland, providing for their various needs. Eileen loved reading mysteries, doing crosswords, and playing chess; she crafted jewelry in Southwest motifs and operated a lapidary workshop replete with rock saws, grinders/polishers, and tumblers. She was a warm and witty woman able to chat with persons from all walks of life, invariably conveying an air of interested optimism and earning devoted friends from all around the world.
Eileen greatly enjoyed travel, usually accompanying her husband Bob on trips to Europe, Central and South America, and Southern and Eastern Asia, but once took a tour of Europe with her sister Betty, accompanied by respective daughters. Following Bob’s retirement, the couple established a desert base of mobile homes in Quartzsite, AZ, where she hosted numbers of family and friends. In the Northwest, Christmas afternoon served as the occasion for an “open-house” to host a large number of friends enjoying the eclectic, carefully prepared selection of specialty Christmas cookies accompanied by copious bowls of rum-and-brandy eggnog.
Eileen will always be remembered as a paragon of civility and welcome decorum, a woman who was always even-tempered and ever acted admirably. Her eldest granddaughter, who spent numerous summers at their Fieldston Rd. residence, can recall no instance of her granny ever getting angry. Notably, not even when she roller-skated around the rugs on the top floor, leaving a streak of oil on a white carpet, which she “saved” by promptly cutting out the offending swath of fibers. Of course, granny instantly noted the damage, but never mentioned it and had it quietly repaired. A “class act”, as some would say.
Eileen was preceded in leaving this world by her husband Robert in 2007, her sister Elizabeth Story, and by two of her daughters-in-law, Markell and Kathy Kaiser. She is survived by her children Emily (William) Callaghan, Nicholas (Deborah) Kaiser, Anthony (Anna) Kaiser, Frederick Kaiser, M.D., and Jonathan (Debi) Kaiser, fifteen grandchildren, ten great-grandchildren, and many loving friends and relatives. She will be missed terribly by her survivors. Interestingly, less than twenty-four hours previously, Margaret Fouts, a longtime Bellingham resident and perhaps Eileen’s dearest friend, also passed away in Lacey, WA. Perhaps they had made travel plans together. Memorials may be made to Chapter AP of the P.E.O., 1741 Sapphire Trail, Bellingham, WA 98226-7838. A Memorial Service will be held at Westford Funeral Home on Monday, December 23, 2013 at 4pm. Bishop Kevin Bond Allen will be officiating. Reception to follow.