John Edmunds King
John Edmunds King, of Seattle, WA, passed away on February 3 due to complications of Parkinson’s Disease. He was 82 years old.
John was born on August 25, 1941 to Robert and Phoebe King in Seattle, WA. After graduating from Bellevue High School in 1959, John went on to study History at Princeton University (’63) and Law at Harvard Law School (’66). He later earned an LLM in Tax Law from the Levin College of Law at the University of Florida (’87).
Following gradua0tion from law school, John served as an officer in the Judge Advocate General Corps of the U.S. Navy, achieving the rank of Lieutenant. After his honorable discharge from military service, he served on the staff of U.S. Senator Henry (“Scoop”) M. Jackson (WA) as special counsel to the Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee in Washington, DC.
In 1970, John was married to Josephine Cook Hadlock, and in 1971 they moved back to Seattle where John began his legal career, later venturing into consulting as well. Over the course of his career, he worked at numerous legal and professional services firms in Seattle, including Ridell Williams; Haskins & Sells; Graham & Dunn; and Williams, Kastner, & Gibbs.
John was a man of many interests and pursuits. Some of particular note:
• He was a devoted father to his three children and grandfather to his eight grandchildren.
• He was a lifelong member of the Episcopal Church and for most of his life was a parishioner at St. Thomas in Medina, WA, where he also served as an usher and member of the vestry.
• He was an enthusiastic sports fan and amateur athlete. He especially enjoyed basketball, which he played at the Washington Athletic Club several times a week until well into his 70s.
• He was an amateur philosopher and self-published author of a collection of original aphorisms:
“Captive Notions: Concise Commentaries on the Commonplace.”
• He was an enthusiastic follower of politics and a passionate advocate for pro-democracy causes, serving as President of the Board of Fix Democracy First, a non-profit organization dedicated to campaign finance reform.
Late in life, John found love a second time and married Gretchen Davis in 2011, with whom he lived very happily until illness intervened.
John is survived by his wife, Gretchen, his three children and their spouses: Wyatt and Kalpana, Cabell and Maureen, and Carrington and Garrett; and his eight grandchildren: Abigail, Gabriel, Amelia, Kishan, Narayan, Tiernan, Adeline, and Mabel.
Services will be held at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, in Medina, WA, at 10:00 am on May 17, 2024. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in John’s memory to St. Thomas or Fix Democracy First.
