Elsie Von Stubbe: `She Was Into Everything That Needed Doing'

What kind of woman would loft a platter with John the Baptist's head in an airport waiting room to help an incoming visitor find her?

Elsie Von Stubbe, arts patron and community activist, that's who.

She was a beauty at ease in the limelight. An early photo of her - she was a high-school homecoming queen and at 15 sang with bands on a Spokane radio station - shows ice-blue eyes glowing in a creamy face framed by Jean Harlow hair.

That this woman who wed Seattle dentist Alfred Von Stubbe had the imagination to dream up projects to better the community, and the energy to follow through, enhanced her allure.

The arts community in which she was a player - the Seattle Opera, Symphony and Art Museum guilds, the 200-Plus-1 Club - "cannot stand" her absence.

Friends of the Library, and those who worked with her to build Broadview Library, Thompson Elementary School or Bitter Lake Community Center, also express disbelief.

"People call day after day," said her daughter, Valerie Von Stubbe Brice of Woodinville. "They say, `What will we do without her?' "

Mrs. Von Stubbe died of cancer Sunday, Feb. 12, at 78.

"She was into everything that needed doing," said her daughter.

When Seattle bought a Greenwood property in 1967 and allocated funds for a library, but used the money to refurbish Sick's Stadium for major-league baseball, Mrs. Von Stubbe raised such a fuss - and rounded up so many neighbors to sit with books on boxes in 1972 - that the city found funding for the library and opened it in 1976.

She and her husband did all the social things - horseback riding, yachting, charity balls.

But Mrs. Von Stubbe also found time for award-winning PTA work, urban-renewal projects and kids' safety programs.

It was in the hands-on days of Seattle Opera Guild that her creative energies were put to best use. She made props and costumes for operas such as "Aida," "Romeo and Juliet" and "Salome."

When asked to pick up a visiting opera director at the airport, she pondered how he would know her. So she took along the John the Baptist head she had fashioned on a tray with fruit. The director found her and the opera got a lot of free press.

Where did she find materials?

"Elsie was a garage-sale addict," said Opera Guild friend Gloria Neils. "She found pots and pans, paper cups, you name it, for our buffets at the Stimson Barn. She always had all kinds of ribbons and flowers on the tables. If we ever needed anything, we said, `Call Elsie. She'll have it or know where to get it. She was one of a kind."

Other survivors include sons William of Yakima, Marc of Kent and Paul Charles of Granite Falls, Snohomish County, plus eight grandchildren. Her husband died in 1987.

Services are at 11 a.m. today at St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church.