Topic: Biographies
When Ginny Ruffner moved to Seattle in the mid-1980s, she had already mastered the lampwork technique that would make her a celebrity among art-glass devotees. Her distinctive style of glass sculpture...
Merrilee Rush was among the most popular homegrown singing stars that the Northwest rock 'n' roll teen scene produced during the mid 1960s. Her trademark low voice and comely looks and an exciting sta...
James S. Russell grew up on American Lake in Pierce County, where he developed a love of sailing. After graduating from Stadium High School in Tacoma at age 15, he tried to join the navy but was turne...
The history of Tacoma cannot be told without the story of William Rust. Born into a Quaker family in Philadelphia, he ventured West with dreams of finding fortune in the gold rush. Using the skills an...
James M. Ryan, known in Seattle as "Mr. Downtown," was first president and then chairman of UNICO Properties. UNICO Properties manages the 10-acre parcel of property in the heart of downtown Seattle ...
A pioneer of Seattle public television and legendary figure in radio history, Milo Ryan was responsible for discovering and preserving a forgotten cache of some of the most important radio news broadc...
Seattle restaurateur Patricia McGuinness Ryan was the long-time proprietor of the Denny Regrade's popular Two Bells Tavern. Under her management between 1982 and 1999, the Two Bells became a neighborh...
In 1882, Olive "Ollie" Ryther and her husband Noble Ryther, parents of four children, adopted four orphans. Ollie Ryther vowed to never turn an orphaned child away. She founded Seattle's Ryther Home a...
Born in Seattle, James Y. Sakamoto became one of the leaders of the local and national Japanese American community during the critical era just before and after the start of World War II. He was a fou...
Jennie Samuels (1868-1948) was deeply involved with the Women's Club Movement in Washington. She founded the Nannie Burroughs Study Club in Everett, and was an early executive member of the Washington...
Marine Corps aviation pioneer Lawson H. M. "Sandy" Sanderson (1895-1979) was born and grew up in Shelton, Washington. He became a Marine Corps pilot at the end of World War I and in the following year...
Bob Santos, born and raised in Seattle's Chinatown-International District, spent most of his life as an activist in his old neighborhood -- saving it, nurturing it, defending it against outside threat...
A Seattle resident since 1972, Norie Sato is a multidisciplinary visual artist. Sato has worked in various mediums including printmaking, video, sculpture, terrazzo flooring, and glass. Her long caree...
The visionary behind Washington's esteemed Red Willow Vineyard is Mike Sauer (b. 1947), a farmboy from Toppenish who studied agricultural economics at Washington State University. After marrying fello...
Pioneering heart surgeon Lester R. Sauvage's first career goal was to become a Major League baseball player. His forceful mother insisted that he focus on his education instead. He entered medical sch...
J. Willis Sayre was a longtime resident of Seattle -- a journalist, arts promoter, and local historian whose work spanned more than five decades during the city's most explosive period of growth and d...
Paul Schell was a politician, attorney, developer, and urban planner who helped guide Seattle's transformation from a medium-sized city into a vibrant metropolis. Born, raised, and educated in Iowa be...
Viennese-born Fritz Schmidl, lawyer, social worker, and author of numerous articles on social work, law, and applied psychoanalysis, arrived in Seattle with his wife, child psychoanalyst Dr. Edith Bux...
Dietrich Schmitz was a Seattle banker and civic leader. The 65-year old "ramrod-straight, gentlemanly banker," as one business writer described him, was president of Washington Mutual Savings Bank. I...
Floyd Schmoe's life, which more than spanned the twentieth century, was shaped by his love of nature and by his equally passionate commitment to helping those afflicted by war and injustice. A child o...
Franz Xavier "F. X." Schreiner was one of Seattle's well-known entrepreneurs during the 1890s and early 1900s. Perhaps most famous for his Merchant's Cafe in the city's Pioneer Square, he also was inv...
In an era when show-business impresarios often were caricatured as homburg-hatted men wielding large cigars, Seattle had Cecilia Augspurger Schultz, a woman of august ancestry with her own taste in ha...
The San Juan Islands are a remote, rural archipelago in the Salish Sea of the Pacific Northwest between the Washington mainland and Canada's Vancouver Island. In the late 1930s healthcare for the isla...
Gordon N. Scott was president of Pioneer Sand and Gravel and a Seattle civic leader. After moving to Seattle from British Columbia in his early 30s, he volunteered for numerous civic and charitable or...