Byron Hook lived life with tenacity, action, and resourcefulness. From his austere childhood on a farm in southern Illinois to his successful adult life as a business owner, he worked hard, found and seized opportunities, and enjoyed the blessings of family and friends. On March 25th, at the age of 95, Byron passed away peacefully in his home where he had lived for nearly 67 years.
Byron started life in Vienna, Illinois, on June 6, 1919, as the fourth of six children of Charles Hook and Sarah Penrod. The Hooks’ 300-acre farm home had no electricity and no running water, but plenty of hard work to sustain multiple crops and livestock. Perhaps farming never left Byron because he was an original member of Seattle’s P-Patch program and had his very desirable plot at Interbay for the remainder of his life.
Around 1942, Byron was inducted into the Army. Thanks to his older brothers’ early interest in radios, he learned Morse code as a teenager and the Army quickly put him to work as a radio operator aboard an Army troop transport ship. On one sailing to the Aleutian Islands, a Japanese submarine torpedoed his ship, causing loss of life and extensive damage. The horror of that experience stayed with Byron for the rest of his life.
The Army also led Byron to his wife of 58 years, Marilyn Smith. She worked at the Port of Embarkation in Seattle, and in 1944 Byron spotted her on the pier and the rest is history. They married the same year and started life together at the Hollywood Apartments on lower Queen Anne hill. There, Byron and Marilyn met life-long friends who eventually became their neighbors again on 12th Avenue West in Seattle, where Byron lived the remainder of his life. Byron and Marilyn had two children, Cheryl and Bryan.
In 1945, the day he was honorably discharged from the Army, Byron walked down Elliott Ave and saw a sign that read “Radio Repairman Wanted”. With the confidence of a man who knew radios, he walked into Poole Electric and was hired on the spot. Within two years, he had bought out the owner and changed the name to Pacific Appliance. That started Byron’s long, successful career in the appliance business. But being a man who liked action, one full-time job wasn’t enough, so he moonlighted as a taxi driver and a reserve police officer. The latter job gave him the chance to watch many professional baseball games because he would volunteer for security duty at Sicks Stadium, home of the Seattle Rainiers. Byron’s love of baseball never faded, nor did his comfort with radios, and he listened to nearly every Mariners game right up to the week of his death. He was also an avid sportsman and spent many weekends hunting and fishing with family and friends.
Byron was preceded in death by his wife, Marilyn, his daughter, Cheryl Hook Westwood (Bob), and his brothers Charles, Carl, Paul and Henry. He is survived by his son, Bryan (Patricia) of Seattle; his sister, Ruth Hook Tanner (Earl) of Bellevue, four grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, and five nieces and nephews. His family and friends will miss his entertaining conversations and his frank, funny, and often acerbic assessments of all things political. A gathering of family and friends to celebrate his long life will be held at a later time.