Myrthel Ruth Alexandra Speidel Harlow

Myrthel Speidel Harlow, 103; go-getter, local diner owner

By Kristina Shevory

Seattle Times staff reporter

Myrthel Ruth Alexandria Speidel Harlow, shown at age 100, was known for her sense of humor.

Myrthel Ruth Alexandria Speidel Harlow was in her 90s when she got fed up with all the trees growing around her house.

So she cut them down with a handsaw.

"When I went to visit her once, I found her out in the yard cutting down a tree so wide you couldn't put your arms around it," her great-granddaughter Shyla Wilcynski recalled. "And when I asked her why she was doing it, she said she needed something to do."

Even then ? six months before her 100th birthday ? Mrs. Speidel Harlow never let her age get in the way of something she wanted done.

Mrs. Speidel Harlow died of heart failure on Tuesday Dec. 24, her family said. She was 103.

She was born Jan. 11, 1899, in Carbonado, Pierce County, and moved to Seattle with her family when she was a young girl. Her parents operated a boarding house downtown, where she used to help out by taking meals to the loggers who stayed there. She finished eighth grade but never attended high school.

She met her first husband, William Kenneth Speidel, a longshoreman, when she worked at a cannery putting labels on cans of salmon. The two married in 1920 and had two sons, Richard and Robert.

She continued working at the cannery to earn extra money until one of her sons was injured while playing at home. When she came home and saw him bloodied, with a cut on his head, she vowed that she would stop working.

Her first husband died in 1946, and two years later she married Bufford William Harlow. The two operated a diner, at north Lake Union and then in Fremont, for seven years. Her husband was the cook and she was the waitress. He died in 1968, and after his death, she worked briefly as a dishwasher.

Mrs. Speidel Harlow was known for her frugality and sense of humor. When her car-insurance company wanted to increase her premium when she was 95, she refused to pay it. Instead, she started walking and taking the bus. Whenever she went grocery shopping, she walked two miles each way to the store and carried her groceries home.

When she went to the grocery store the day after being robbed and attacked at her home, the checkers asked why her arm and face were black and blue.

"She told them, 'I got in a fight, but you should see the other guy,' " her son Richard Speidel recalled. "That was just like her. She always saw the funny side to everything."

In her free time, she enjoyed gardening and canning ? she liked giving away her homemade applesauce to friends and relatives ? and going to meetings of the Eastern Star, a Masonic-related fraternity.

Longevity was in Mrs. Speidel Harlow's genes. Her sister, Gules Wickstrom, died at age 101; and her brother, George Wickstrom, when he was 97. She is survived by two sons, Richard Speidel of Shoreline and Robert Speidel of Eldorado Hills, Calif; eight grandchildren; 24 great-grandchildren; and one great-great-grandson.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. tomorrow at the Evergreen-Washelli Chapel at 11111 Aurora Ave. N. In lieu of flowers, remembrance donations may be made to Providence Hospice.

Kristina Shevory: 206-464-2039 or kshevory@seattletimes.com.