Farewell, Sister Clea Putnam

Long time B7 Ward member Clea Rose Walker Putnam passed away of natural causes at the age of 76 on November 25, 2014.  The once beautiful and talented dancer and self-taught musician grew up in Arizona, Colorado, Oregon and California.  After graduation from Pasadena High School, Clea attended college briefly where she studied music. 

After her marriage to David Aldon Putnam in the Logan LDS Temple in October 1957, she continued to dance while rearing their family of five children.  She especially excelled at ballet, tap, ballroom and acrobatics.  She also sang, played the piano, the ukelele and taught herself to play the guitar.  As her many talents became known, she opened her own dance studio in Afton, WY where she taught many students.  While living in Afton, she became involved for several years in a talent program created by the Afton Lions Club involving many members of the community.  After the Putnam family moved to California, she got involved and wrote the music and scripts for ward roadshows.  She signed the kids up for dance and drama classes and eventually found an agent who helped her find parts for her children and herself in movies and TV commercials.  To their credit were bit parts in “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming,” “Play It As It Lays” and a Robin Hood TV movie.  The Putnams – mother and children – also helped market in TV commercials such products as Spaghetti-Os, Chef Boyardee, Hunts Ketchup, Geritol and Carnation Tuna.

Always creative, Clea especially loved arts, crafts and sewing.  “She could just look at something … then go home and make it even better than the original,” notes Br. Dave who also credits his wife with “being able to sew just about anything.  She could design and sew a dress for the girls, Barbie clothes for their dolls, Halloween costumes - even upholstered her son's car with zebra print fabric – – all without a pattern.”  A self-proclaimed perfectionist, Clea worked until she mastered it ... no matter what "it" was.  Br. Dave states, his wife also loved games of any kind and was hard to beat because she was so skilled.  He also noted she had a great sense-of-humor, was adventurous and willing to try almost anything.  She frequently joined her husband on duck and deer hunts, fishing trips and loved to hike or camp out when the children were small. 

In the days of her activity in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sister Putnam was always involved in music, leading the Sacrament meeting songs and the choir.

Clea is survived by David and their children: David Putnam, Jr. of Graham, WA, Cynthia Higbee of Port Angeles, WA; Jennifer Nielson of Chandler, AZ, and Sarah Collier of Issaquah, WA.  She and David also have 14 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her parents Merl LaMar Walker and Sybil Hartense Lee Walker; and a son, John Putnam.

As a member of the Putnam family said at her funeral, "she left us mentally long before she left us physically," but Clea has left an indelible mark on the lives of those who knew her ... and taught us all invaluable lessons about love, patience and enduring to the end.