Pigeon races were passion for Jay Frees
The work was hard and the hours were long, but Mr. Frees, who worked until he was 85, had other things in mind — he "aspired," said his daughter, Sheila Minton, to a life beyond clogged drains and broken-down heating systems, a life of soaring freedom: pigeon racing.
On March 18, about six years into retirement, Mr. Frees died in a nursing home after struggling with Parkinson's disease. He was 91.
He was born in Spirit Lake, Iowa, and moved with his family to Washington state when jobs grew scarce. Mr. Frees went to grade school near Seattle's Green Lake and graduated from Roosevelt High School.
He learned the plumbing trade and later opened his own business, doing both residential and commercial repair and installation work, and selling parts and equipment. He and his first wife, Verna Hotchkiss Frees, did well enough to send the children to private schools and give them overseas trips as graduation presents.
And then, just over 30 years ago, Mr. Frees and his wife built a dream home in Woodway that looked out over Puget Sound.
"It still stands there, so strong and solid," Minton said. "It was a gorgeous home, five or six huge tiled bathrooms, front doors 11 feet high."
And it was perfect for Mr. Frees' not-so-secret passion: racing homing pigeons. Mr. Frees fell in love with the sport at 13, after a man gave him a pigeon that ate out of his hand and he scrounged up some boards to build her a home.
As Mr. Frees grew older, he was so devoted to the sport that he built backyard pigeon lofts as replicas of his majestic Woodway home, high on a bluff where the birds could swoop above the Sound.
"It was what pigeon racers would die for, an area like that to enjoy his birds," said Russ Teller, a fellow member of the Seattle Sno-King Pigeon Club. "He could sit there on his patio and see the birds come in."
To those unfamiliar with the sport, it all sounds quite strange, this idea of sitting around waiting for a bunch of pigeons to arrive. But to Mr. Frees, it was thrilling and mysterious.
"When they're training, they're just so beautiful over your head, and you hear the wings, like shhh shhh shhh," said Lissie Frees, whom he married 28 years ago, after his first wife died. "At one time we kept about 100."
For training, Mr. Frees would take the birds away from home, first maybe to somewhere near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, then a little farther, and a little farther still, each time hoping they would find their way back. The pigeons' homing instinct was so strong, Lissie Frees said, they made it back 95 percent of the time, often in a single day.
"He used to have me take pigeons in my trunk when I would go down to Oregon," Minton recalled. "I would stop at a rest area and let them out. You open their box and all of those pigeons fly up above the buildings, they make three circles around, all of them together, and then they've got their bearings."
For races, competitors would put hundreds of birds on a trailer, which might go as far as California before the pigeons were set free all at once. After circling, the birds would scatter in the direction of their own lofts, often flying all the way home without a rest.
Jay and Lissie Frees would sit out back all day, their eyes squinting to see the first little bird appear on the horizon. The bird with the best time back wins the race.
"We looked at the skies, and hopefully they come in," Lissie Frees said. "Their homing instinct is something really special."
In addition to his wife, Lissie, of Bothell, and daughter Sheila Minton of Port Orchard, Mr. Frees is survived by daughters Jayan Westby of Marysville, Verna King of Antalya, Turkey, and Meridith Rhinehart of Arizona; and sons Jay Frees Jr. of Clinton, Island County, and Lee Frees of Mount Vernon. Also surviving are two stepsons and numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren, and a brother, Whitney Frees of Mount Vernon.
Services have been held.
Maureen O'Hagan: 206-464-2562 or mohagan@seattletimes.com