Bobbie Lee (formerly Bobbie Lucas), a loving mother and grandmother, passed away Monday, August 24, 2020, at age 82 due to complications from COVID-19. She was born on July 16, 1938, on US Army base Fort Jay on Governors Island in New York City, New York to Richard Benjamin Lee and Kate Quinn Lee. She grew up around the world, spending some of her young life in Austria right after World War II and graduating from Roosevelt High School in Honolulu, Hawaii, while her father was stationed on the island. She spent her 20’s working for American Airlines in San Francisco, California where she met and married Gerald “Jerry” Eugene Lucas in 1967.
Jerry and Bobbie moved away from San Francisco during the Summer of Love because it wasn’t their “cup of tea.” They ended up across the country in Nashua, New Hampshire on a farmhouse where they raised chickens, pigs, and goats and grew their own vegetables and even ground wheat for bread. While living in their farmhouse, they had two daughters, Jennifer and Deborah. Bobbie worked as a travel agent and after a handful of years in New Hampshire, the family started their trek across the US living in many cities and towns along the way. As an air traffic controller, Jerry moved from airport to airport, and Bobbie and their girls moved along.
Jerry and Bobbie divorced in 1979 and Bobbie and her girls settled in Choteau, Montana. Bobbie worked as a nurse’s aid at Teton County Hospital, she delivered the Great Falls Tribune around town for almost 10 years, she was a receptionist at Ear Mountain Machinery and she was most well known for her years of work as a teacher’s aide at Choteau High School. She worked there from 1980 to 1987 walking the halls, filling in for teachers, selling tickets to almost every sporting event and musical or theater performance held at the school during those years. Students from Choteau High will remember her most for hollering, “Outside or in the study hall!”
Bobbie relocated to Oregon in 1987 where she continued to work in customer service for many mobile home dealers and manufacturers. From there she spent a few wonderful years working as the main receptionist for the KUPL radio station. That way one of her favorite jobs.
As she approached retirement, Bobbie moved to Arizona to help care for her youngest grandson, Tommy after he was born. She volunteered at his school, she worked the voting polls, she line danced, she worked at Baby Gap part-time because she loved it. Bobbie was also a zealous Red Hatter.
Bobbie suffered a few concussion falls in her later life and suffered cognitive impairment. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s from a Traumatic Brain Injury in 2013. Her daughters moved her back to Oregon and she continued to be active and independent until she had to be moved to the Murray Highland memory care facility. She lived there for the last two years of her life.
Bobbie was loved by her family and every Wednesday they would take her out to dinner. As Bobbie’s memory declined her family picked her favorite restaurant and took her there each week. Pietro’s Pizza in Beaverton was a welcome place with food and fun for any family members who came along. Those Wednesday night dinners were a blessing for many years. Her family continued to bring food from Pietro’s into her memory care each Wednesday until the COVID-19 pandemic closed the facility to visitors.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, her daughters visited her through the window of her facility and Bobbie embraced the changes as best she could with a sense of humor and her usual resilience. The last time her family gathered at the window was on July 16 for her 82nd birthday party, affectionately referred to by her daughters as the best “pandemic birthday.” We will always remember this day as the last, best day we gathered with Bobbie to celebrate. Bobbie was devoted to her family, her daughters, and her grandchildren and there was nowhere we would all rather be in a pandemic than at her window sharing her birthday with her.
Bobbie was preceded in death by her parents, Richard Ben and Kate Quinn, and by her brother Richard. She is survived by her daughters Jennifer (Lucas) Sullivan of Aloha, Oregon, and Deborah (Lucas) Busby of Spirit Lake, Idaho. She is also survived by her brothers and sisters Kathy, Eileen, Mary, Robert, Michael, and Patrick all of Oregon and California. Bobbie had eight grandchildren who loved her beyond measure, they are Ethan, Joe, Joshua, Corey, Lucas, Jensen, Nichelle, and Tommy and she had six great-grandchildren who never knew the wonderful woman she was before Alzheimer’s, but who cherished her all the same. They are Olivia, Benson, Hayley, Flynn, Farran, and Jackson.
Bobbie was a force of nature, she was independent, hard-working, she loved fiercely, and she bravely fought the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease for over a decade. Her daughters passionately believe that were it not for COVID, Bobbie would be here today and for probably another 10 years. She was a fighter.
Her family is planning a private service later this fall when more of her family members can safely gather. If you feel so compelled, the family asks that you donate to the Alzheimer’s Association in her name.