Lorraine Ellen Paddock 1930 - 2021

1930-2021

Lorraine Ellen Anderson was born in 1930 to Mildred (Spencer) and Algot Anderson in the Swedish-speaking community of St. Cloud, Minnesota. Ultimately the eldest of five children, she stood in a Model T at age six, while her two younger siblings sat in the only space available as her parents drove all the way to Polson, Montana on the Flathead Indian Reservation in search of a better life. Like so many during the Great Depression, they didn’t find it. But they had fish from Flat head Lake and her father was able to build their house from the ships abandoned in the junkyard. Living on the reservation, Lorraine told a story of the natives protesting a dam, standing silently on street corners in full regalia. It must have been an awesome sight.


She missed most of her first year of school, bringing home every illness to her younger brother and sisters so that they could have a more successful start than she did. As a teenager she worked at the five-&-dime and the local theatre (where she heard all the movies) to help the family. The Carpenters Union saw potential in her and awarded a loan covering her first year at St. Patrick’s School of Nursing in Missoula. From that point onward she worked all her spare time in the adjoining hospital to pay off her loan and ongoing tuition, which is not to say she didn’t have fun, friends, good steady food, and a full-length bath for the first time in her life. For all the strictness we hear of, the nuns sorted out several “situations” favorably and Lorraine excelled and graduated.


Her first position was at the Montana State Hospital for the Insane where her duties included, among other things, playing basketball with the patients!—a potentially dangerous activity. Regardless, she enjoyed her job and soon met her husband-to-be. Paul “Ned” Edwin Paddock was back from the war, attending Montana State College in Bozeman. On an excursion, he and a few friends headed to the hospital to pick up a few nurses. Lorraine was someone else’s date but Paul was captivated, and as people were getting into the car he made sure to be the one sitting next to her.


They married in 1953 in Wise River, Montana, and lived in Anaconda for a short time. After welcoming a son, they moved to Toledo, Oregon, where an industrial-arts teaching position awaited Paul at the local high school. Word preceded their arrival and Lorraine was greeted, not with a job offer, but a job order! She became a nurse-of-all-trades in the small timber-town hospital—from babies to emergencies. She out-earned her husband, a fact she had to soft-pedal but enjoyed nonetheless. In due course, four more children arrived, necessitating a reduction to part-time work and thus correcting the fiscal imbalance.
Lorraine and Paul had enjoyed McMinnville on a pass-thru and, in search of a drier climate, moved the family in 1966 when another industrial-arts position opened up. Once again, Lorraine was snatched up at the local hospital. Her “interview” was at 3pm (that should have been a clue) on the front steps at 5th & Evans and—surprise!—Lorraine immediately started her first shift. She worked in obstetrics, then the ER when the hospital moved out near Linfield College. She finished her nearly 50-year career in geriatrics at Oakwood Glen and Hillside Manor, where she found friendship with the residents as much as the staff.
She and Paul tag-teamed raising their children: her days to his evenings while she worked swing shift. Lorraine was a wonderful mother who wanted to work less and be home more with her children. But as with so much of life, absence helps us to know exactly what love is. Her children did not lack. She gave them a life free of the poverty she endured; she provided a strong, female work-ethic example; and later in life she cheerfully showed how to get up after every physical setback. She endured piano lessons, band practice, animals, and living in a home chronically under construction.


When Paul retired, they enjoyed traveling regionally, especially to Victoria, BC. They were married nearly 42 years. Lorraine loved reading, wrote poetry, made necklaces, and knitted dozens of hats over many years for the Lafayette Fire Dept.’s annual toy drive. She was quite religious early on, and progressed to her own unique spirituality, blending past-lives stories seamlessly into her current life.


Lorraine passed on November 20th. She was predeceased by her husband, her parents, and three of her siblings: Alice Haessler, Janette Weaver, and Clarence Anderson. She is survived by her children: Paul Paddock (Joan), Sandra Savage (Woodrow), Carol Paddock, Audrey Paddock (Dan O’Flaherty), and Harve Paddock; four grandchildren: Dr. Sarah Savage Hedges (Andrew), Colt Savage, John-Martin Paddock, and Helen-Lorraine Paddock (Derek Angel, fiancé); a great-granddaughter, Everleigh-Faith Angel; and her youngest sister, Bonnie Dillon.


Her remains were sent to OHSU for educational purposes. No formal service will be held. Remembrances can be sent in Lorraine’s name to OPB (Ways to give - OPB) or the charity of your choice.

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