Swiss-American Ruthli Frieda Kemmerer passed away on December 13,
2022, after a full and adventurous life of 92 years. She was born in
Passaic, New Jersey, on August 15, 1930, to Swiss immigrants, Trauqott
Amsler and Frieda Kuenzli/Amsler. She spent a good portion of her
childhood in Switzerland, where she learned a handful of
languages—though English was not among them. As an immigrant in
Nanuet, New York, she had a lonely childhood, but music gave her
wings.


Mum had a beautiful voice and loved to sing. She sang for war bond
drives near the end of WWII, was a soloist in the Helen Hayes Summer
Theater in Nyack, New York (1946 to 1947), where she graduated from
high school in 1952. She studied music at Oberlin College (graduating in
1956) and then took to the wind, teaching music first in Michigan, then in
Chile and Japan—she traveled with the Madrigal Singers of Tokyo from
1953 to 1954.


She married Walter Orville Kemmerer in Addy, WA on March 29, 1958,
pursued a masters in French at the University of WA, and settled in
Washington, where she taught piano lessons from home. As a stay-
home mom, she shared with her three kids a love of the outdoors, arts
(theater, visual arts, and music), and animals. In the sixties she helped
start the Skagit County Humane Society, and forty years later, North
Beach Paws (outside Ocean Shores), where mum remained a dedicated
volunteer until she passed.


Mum appreciated simple, natural beauty, whether in the lines of a leaf or
the colors of a feather. She studied history, knew much of language and
cultures, and loved to travel—one of the highlights of mum's life was a
months-long backpacking trip through China with her two grown
daughters. She was a steadfast mother, dad's beautiful partner in dance,
a talented soloist, photographer, gardener, birder, amateur mycologist
(mushrooms), and a truly tireless international traveler. Mum was
cheerful, engaged, and energetic—right to the end.


Missed by all who knew her bright smile, mum is preceded in death by
both of her parents and our dad, who passed in 2017. (They were
married for 59 years.) She leaves the three of us—son, Ed Kemmerer
and two daughters, Jan and Lisa Kemmerer—as well as sister-in-law
Shirley Smith (with many offspring), her dear relatives in Switzerland,
and her beloved cats, Sinbad and Miso (aka Mr. Wilson).

Mum asked that memorials be made to North Beach Paws of Ocean
Shores (WA), where volunteers tend and rehome displaced cats and
dogs.

https://www.northbeachpaws.org/donate

Mum, may your abundance of energy and enthusiasm for life be with us
always.


(The family kindly requests donations to North Beach Paws of Ocean Shore at the link posted above rather than flowers, as this is what she wanted.)