Verola "Nadine" Jump Obituary (1922

Verola Nadine Jump, 98, a resident of Portland, Oregon, passed away on Sunday morning March 29, 2020, at the home she shared with her daughter, Vanessa and son-in-law, Shannon Nelson. A graveside service will be held at Willamette National Cemetery in Portland at a later date. Nadine was born on February 3, 1922, in College Place, Washington. She was the second oldest of nine children born to Samuel and Thelma Grace (Eisenhardt) Pflugrad. Her brothers nicknamed her "Squirt" for her diminutive stature. Nadine's family moved numerous times in Washington State during her childhood, birthing usually one child per town, including Yakima, Auburn, Kent, Seattle, Rainier Valley, Goldendale, Spokane, and Walla Walla. Her parents had a dairy farm when she was little, but when she was about 2 years old, shortly before the Great Depression officially set in, the cows got a disease and all of them died. Her parents declared bankruptcy, put a mattress and all their worldly belongings in the milk truck, and became itinerant fruit pickers. At that time there were only three kids: Nadine, her older brother, Wint, and younger sister, Muriel. Nadine and her two siblings slept in the milk truck, and her parents would tenderly pulled the mattress with its precious cargo of sleeping children out of the truck and under a tree, so they could pick fruit while keeping watch over the children until they woke up. During The Great Depression most parents could not support all of their children so teenagers often left home to get a live-in job. Nadine moved with her family to Spokane about the same time her older brother went off to join the Army, and after two weeks there, at age 14, she left home for a job as a nanny for room & board while attending high school. Nadine and Muriel ("Nip") were only a year apart, but for most of high school each had jobs in completely different parts of the city and attended different high schools, though during Nadine's sophomore year of high school she and Nip had jobs in the same home for awhile and were able to attend the same high school for part of the school year. Nadine was a nanny from age 14-16, then lived with her aunt and uncle in The Dalles/Hood River area for awhile, packaging high end pears individually in tissue paper for transfer. After that she moved to Walla Walla, living and working on family farms for a couple of years, getting up at 5:00 every morning to bake pies for the hired hands before she went off to high school. Nadine attended Walla Walla College with her cousin Wilmer, working in the school cafeteria to pay her way, occasionally serving as a model for photographers, and making doll clothes to send home to her youngest little sister. She studied biology, botany (her favorite), and Elementary Education for two years before leaving school to head to Portland, Oregon with her best friend, Dorothy Mae "Dottie" White, who was a nursing student that had been accepted to transfer to OHSU. When her mother died in 1948, Nadine became the mother figure to her younger siblings. The youngest, Rita, was 11 years old. Nadine became the matriarch of a large and loving family until she passed away at age 98. Nadine started in Portland as a nanny but quickly got a job as a manual money counter with the Federal Reserve National Bank. She had a reputation for being able to tell counterfeit bills by the feel of them in her hands, and the bank managers would bring suspicious bills to her for verification. It worked for bills but not as easily for men. She met her future husband, Harry Demain Jump, on a blind date, set up by her brother around 1950. But unbeknownst to her brother, the intended gentleman had passed her phone number to Harry, a Navy vet. (Nadine's brothers were Army vets so this was taboo.) Harry had spent his first 5 years on a peach farm in Peach, Washington before the Grand Coulee Dam gobbled up the town forcing his large Irish Catholic family to relocate, mostly to Ellensburg, Washington, where his father established a large fuel hauling trucking company called Big Bend Transportation. Harry had joined the Navy at age 15, served in WW2, was out by age 17, and on the GI bill was able to obtain his pilots license while he was still only 17. He drove fuel trucks, fruit trucks, dump trucks, concrete trucks, and was 20 years old and working for a logging company in California when he came to Portland for his best buddy's wedding, and happened to be lucky enough to get Nadine's phone number. Besides letting her think he was her brother's friend, he also did not divulge his actual age, 8-1/2 years her junior, and because of his worldliness, she had no reason to suspect that he was younger than she was. They enjoyed each other's company, and he headed back to California, but the logging company had gone out of business, the chain link fence around it was padlocked, and he was penniless with no way to get his final paycheck. With no other plans, he came back to Portland to see how it might work out with Nadine. He got a job as a trolley driver in Portland and drove the Council Crest route for several years which paved the way for his 35 year job as a concrete truck driver and led to him becoming Shop Steward for the Teamsters Local 162. Throughout their courtship they enjoyed bowling, skiing, roller skating at Oaks Park Roller Rink, and socializing with friends. They married on February 22, 1952, at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Portland, OR, near their first apartment on NE 12th and Sandy Blvd. They saved up for the down payment on their first house by collecting silver dollars in a ceramic piggy bank. Harry became president of the Mt. Hood Flying Club and an active member of the Columbia Seaplane Flyers Association, as well as a charter member of the Milwaukie Elks Club where they spent countless hours socializing. They made their home in Portland until 1977 when they bought a home on Evergreen Airpark in the Orchards area of Vancouver, Washington, where they had a hangar and a little airplane. Nadine was Harry's #1 passenger when they went flying together. Harry passed away on April 4, 2004, and Nadine downsized and moved back to Portland the following year, enjoying apartment living at Laurelhurst Village (1 year), Rock Creek Retirement Community (7 years), and Creekside Village (2 years), before moving in with her daughter and son-in-law where she lived out the last 5 years of her life. Nadine had worked for the Federal Reserve National Bank in Portland for 17 years before she became mother to her only child, Vanessa. She left that job to become a homemaker for about 10 years before going back to work at the Federal Reserve. A year or two later, she took a job in Customer Service for Amfac Mortgage and after about 15 years of Customer Service at Benjamin Franklin Bank, she retired for good in about 1989. Nadine was a very loving and caring person. She made great pies, loved cats, jalapeno peppers, pickled beets, pickled cucumbers, but NOT pickled herring. In her younger years she liked to climb trees, walk fences, play baseball (she broke her finger catching the ball), and even as a young mother she did yoga and would spend long periods standing on her head. She was always making new friends and enjoyed long walks and nature. She loved watching birds & squirrels at the backyard feeder, was a voracious reader, and found pleasure in crosswords and jigsaw puzzles. She enjoyed flying and for her 98th birthday, enjoyed a trip on an airliner to visit her brother, Jerry, in Sun City, Arizona, and another trip in a small plane to go to lunch at the Starduster Diner at the Airpark in Independence, Oregon. She is preceded in death by her loving husband, Harry Demain Jump, her parents Samuel and Thelma Grace Pflugrad, her brothers Winton Morley Pflugrad, Chester Allen Pflugrad, sisters Muriel Laureen Benninger and Dolores June Bafus. She is survived by her daughter and son-in-law, Vanessa and Shannon Nelson of Portland; two grandsons, Brandon Nelson (Eva) of Oak Harbor, Washington, and Tyler Nelson (Kaya) of Portland, Oregon; one great grandson, Arthur; brothers Gerald Afton Pflugrad of Sun City, Arizona, Clifford Malcolm Pflugrad of College Place, Washington, Robert Melvin Pflugrad (Scarlett) of Pasco, Washington, and sister Rita Clay-Prusia (Merle) of Monroe, Washington; 48 nieces and nephews, and countless grandnieces and nephews and great grandnieces and nephews. Special thanks to Dr. Anna Peter of Kaiser Sunset Medical Group, Deanna Levinson of Washington County Veterans Office, Barbara Crawford at Columbia Medical Lifeline, and Aaron Duyck of Duyck & VanDeHey Funeral Home. The family wishes to encourage submissions of memories of Nadine via video clips of personal narration, or written story, art or poetry in her honor, or photos, to be sent to nadine@svnelson.net . Materials will be compiled into one large Youtube Memorial video which we expect can be watched anywhere at any later date with family members even if we are all still practicing social distancing. Donations in her honor can be made to the Dougy Center for Grieving Children (www. Dougy.org), which provides support in a safe place where children, teens, young adults, and their families grieving a death can share their experiences. They provide support and training locally, nationally, and internationally to individuals and organizations seeking to assist children in grief.