Obituary of Julianne Weed

Julianne (Melzer) Weed was born July 28, 1941, in Salem, OR, to Jack and Ruth (Rowe) Melzer. She passed away peacefully at home on July 23, 2020 after a valiant battle with cancer. Julie was preceded in death by her loving husband, Tom Weed in 2009 and she had missed him greatly over the years. She was a loving mother, grandmother, aunt, great aunt, and good friend. She is survived by her son Dave (Nancy), daughter Jenny Scott (Casey) as well as loving grandchildren Kayla and Conner Weed and Katarina Scott. She also has a younger sister, Marilyn Freeburn, and brother, Alan Melzer who lives in Salem, OR, and miss Julie greatly.  

When she was young, she loved spending time with her grandparents including Grandpa Mike, who was an Observant Jew and she loved to listen to him play the fiddle. She spent a lot of time with her paternal grandmother, Sophie, and remembered watching Sophie making doilies. She was a good student and joined many clubs and activities. After graduating from high school, she moved to Portland and found a good job there. She met Tom on a blind date. She ordered a steak and it fell in her lap. Mom thought that was the last date for them. Tom adored her and would drive from Springfield to Portland to visit her. He had a planned trip to Europe to pick up an Austin Healy and drive around Europe. He cut his trip short because he couldn’t wait to be with Julie again. They married shortly after, May 30th, 1964. When Tom died in 2009 they had been married for 45 years.

Julie was very energetic. She was the definition of a hard worker. Up at dawn, she would be running around the local track or doing aerobics. Even in recent years, she would get in 10,000 steps every day before sunrise.  Her house was always spotless and she was a wonderful chef. Her garden is beautiful and she took great pride in her gardening skills. Tom often said he married Julie because she could gut and clean the spoils of a hunt. She was like Martha Stewart (before Martha was a thing), coming up with fun arts and crafts projects. She was involved in Dave’s Boy Scout’s Group and Jenny’s Campfire group as well as being a chauffeur. She was very petite and struggled with seeing over the steering wheel while driving. A joke in the Twin Lakes community was that you always knew it was Julie on the road because there appeared to be no one driving the car.

She was the consummate hostess. Tom used to have businessmen and their wives over for elaborate dinner parties. She loved planning events for friends and family. We are all going to miss the lively annual Christmas Eve dinner at her house. Whenever the family got together at the beach, she made sure the kids had some kind of interesting games to play to keep them entertained. Pirate chests were found on multiple vacations as well as water balloon games, scavenger hunts, and a Neskowin version of Survivor. Bugs were eaten.

She started working outside the home in 1985 when Dave moved away for college. She started out as a receptionist and payroll clerk, working her way up to office manager. For many years she was devoted to the company then she retired so she could be a grandma. All of her grandchildren spent a great deal of time at her house until school and life got in the way. She was a very nurturing presence in their lives that continued up until her death. 

She was a passionate person who loved fully. She was a fierce critic yet she was your biggest supporter and cheerleader.  She was extremely generous of spirit and financially. She instilled the value of giving to charity and being community-minded. Both she and Tom provided very well for their family but they also believed, “To whom much is given, much is expected.” Every Christmas, she would lovingly pick out things on the lists of a needy child, getting them everything on their list, instead of the suggested 1 or 2 items. Both she and Tom were civic-minded who instilled the value of democracy and the importance of voting in every election to their children. They were always up to date with the most important issues of the day.

Julie had a great sense of humor. While she was surrounded by a lot of funny people she had a very sharp, wry wit and a great laugh. It’s hard, to sum up a person’s effect on the rest of the world in an obituary but she was a good person who raised good people.  

If you wish to honor Julie and Tom, please consider a donation to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to find a cure. No one should suffer from cancer: https://www.fredhutch.org/en.html