Gail Helen Hendrickson

Gail Helen Hendrickson passed away peacefully on December 3 at the same place where she was born, Swedish Hospital. Gail survived many health issues throughout her life, but recently diagnosed cancer was finally too much for her body to overcome.

Gail was a longtime member of Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Seattle where she served as Vice President and President of the Church Council and President of the Lutheran Church Women. She also served on many other committees and activities including chairing two pastoral call committees for the church and enjoyed singing in the church choir.

Gail worked for fourteen years at Frederick and Nelson department stores where she became a buyer for women's apparel until she retired in 1973. She then became involved with volunteer work for the national church organization serving as President of the Pacific Northwest Lutheran Church Women serving Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska and serving as VP and on the board of the national ELCA Lutheran Church Women organization. In 1985 Gail was invited by the Lutheran World Federation to join eleven other church women on a three-week study seminar of Tanzania and Ethiopia where they observed the benefit of food and medicine distributions to the region from Lutheran World Relief and then reported about the successes of this program to churches in her region. She was selected to several church-wide conventions and also served on the committee for planning the new Women of the ELCA organization resulting from the national ALC-LCA church merger in 1988.

Besides her church work, Gail enjoyed spending time at the family summer home in the San Juan Islands that she helped her parents build. Cooking, entertaining, sewing, art needlework, home decorating, shopping, music and gardening were her favorite activities. She loved to travel, having visited over 70 countries throughout the world by auto, air, sea and river cruises, and was always looking forward to the next trip.

Gail was preceded in death by her loving parents, Helen and Earl Blomberg. Gail is survived by her husband of 52 years, Ralph. She is also survived by her brothers, Harvey Blomberg (Carol) of Portland, OR and Charles Blomberg (Sandy) of Carlsbad, CA and four nephews and nieces, Greg, Eric, Lisa and Aaron and their families.

A funeral service will be held at Magnolia Lutheran Church, 2414 31st Ave West, Seattle, WA 98199 on Saturday, December 28 at 11:00am with interment to follow at Evergreen Washelli Cemetery at 2:00pm.

In lieu of flowers, remembrances may be made to the memorial fund at Magnolia Lutheran Church.