Hope Tuttle, longtime consumer advocate

Hope Anderton Tuttle was recovering from chemotherapy when she participated in a triathlon three years ago.

Ms. Tuttle's daughter, Amy Lawton, signed up both of them as a team for the Denver Danskin Women's Triathlon in 1998. Daughter trained while mother underwent chemotherapy for her fourth recurrence of breast cancer.

The day of the race, a teary-eyed mother cheered her daughter through the first two legs. Then hand in hand they walked and cried along the 5-kilometer running route.

Lawton, who lives in Steamboat Springs, Colo., picked Faith-and-Hope as their team name because she had faith her mother would beat breast cancer. She didn't.

Ms. Tuttle, a longtime Eastside resident, died early yesterday (Aug. 31) at Swedish Medical Center/First Hill in Seattle. She was 60.

"There's not room enough to describe my mom," Lawton said yesterday. "She was generous in her love and time."

For 12 years, from 1983 to 1995, Ms. Tuttle was the voice of the American Red Cross in the Seattle area. As the director of public affairs and marketing, she often was heard on radio or television giving updates on disaster aid and advice for coping during emergencies. She was sent to disaster areas around the country and overseas, including Bosnia-Herzegovina.

She won numerous awards for her public-relations and communications work.

In the 1980s, Ms. Tuttle helped develop an AIDS-education program for the Red Cross. When the forum received public notice because it was presented to teenagers and their parents, she was quoted as saying, "There are two things our society doesn't talk about: sex and death. When you wrap those two up in a package called AIDS, it is very difficult to talk about."

Controversy didn't bother his mother, said her son Jeff Tuttle, of Bellevue.

"My mother was the bravest woman I've ever met," he said. "She battled breast cancer for 16 years."

He added that his mother was an excellent cook who could prepare spinach, hamburger and cheese in at least 101 combinations — all delicious.

Before her tenure with the Red Cross, Ms. Tuttle was the KING Call For Action consumer affairs advocate at KING-TV.

"Hope lived up to her name when she did Call for Action and when she was at the Red Cross," said Jean Enersen, a KING news anchor who worked with her. "She was a true community servant."

Ms. Tuttle went back into consumer affairs in 1996, directing the Consumer Resource Center in Seattle for the state Attorney General's Office.

"Hope always had the best interests of consumers in the state of Washington in mind," said Sean Beary, resource manager in the protection division of the Attorney General's Office. "She was such a caring person. She was fun and could get us laughing anytime with her thing about turtles. She liked them — it was a play on her last name."

Ms. Tuttle also was a perennial volunteer, Lawton said. Even after she left the Red Cross, she volunteered and taught classes for the agency. She also volunteered with the American Lung Association, the American Diabetes Association and Senior Net, a computer class for seniors.

Since retiring from the Attorney General's Office, she had been running her own public-relations company, researching family genealogy and writing her memoirs.

She loved sharing stories about family and friends. When she was bald from chemotherapy, her son Brooks Tuttle of Albany, Ore., shaved his head in her honor. Ms. Tuttle delighted in watching baseball fans ask Brooks for his autograph because he looked like Jay Buhner.

Ms. Tuttle was born in Philadelphia on June 17, 1941, to Sally and Earl Anderton. She lived in Everett, where she was a high-school cheerleader, and graduated with a degree in education from the University of Washington.

Besides her children, she is survived by aunts Laura Anderton of Greensboro, N.C., and Artemis Fredericks of Middleton, R.I.

A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. Sept. 15 at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 84th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 12th Street, Medina.

Remembrances may be made to the Seattle-King County Chapter of the American Red Cross or any breast-cancer charity.

Sherry Grindeland can be reached at 206-515-5633 or sgrindeland@seattletimes.com.