Lillian Maddox offered love, strength to family

Every day, twice a day, Bill Maddox drove to Park Ridge Care Center in Shoreline to visit his wife, Lillian. She would speak an occasional word as he held her hand, read to her and played hymns, Irish tunes and The Three Tenors.

For the three years since her stroke, that was the routine, the latest example of devotion and respect in a marriage that lasted 50 years.

"They honored each other," said daughter Robin Meginniss of Seattle. "They always did."

Lillian Maddox, whose interests ranged from reading and astronomy to bowling and UFOs, died July 11 from complications related to gastric bleeding. She was 85.

Mrs. Maddox was born in Cheney and grew up in Spokane.

During World War II, she served as a WAVE and later went to work for Boeing as an executive secretary.

She married Frank Maddox, whom she called Bill, a widower with two preschool-age children. They later had two more children.

"She chose to be my mother and Rex's mother," Meginniss said.

"We were a loving family," said Rex Maddox, of Tacoma, the oldest of the children. "We didn't have much money, but an awful lot of love."

Rex Maddox remembers regular trips to the library, so all the children, and mother, too, could pick out a book. He remembers nightly dinners in their Seattle home when everyone sat down and the television was turned off.

He recalls his father at the piano, playing the Marine hymn and his mother insisting on equal time for "Anchors Aweigh."

Meginniss remembers her parents teaching values she adheres to today.

When Meginniss was a teenager and looked forward as many girls do to talking on the phone with friends, her mother issued a warning: "If you're going to gossip, you're not getting on the phone."

Another rule, this one a basic courtesy: "If mail comes addressed to somebody (else), you don't open it."

Being a mother, wife and homemaker were Mrs. Maddox's priorities. The beautiful business suits she had worn to Boeing were put aside as she started her life with Bill Maddox, a television repairman.

"She sacrificed something," Meginniss said.

Her new life focused on the family, raising children, dancing to Lawrence Welk with her husband in the living room. Later, there were trips to Reno, senior bowling and a little bit of gambling on the ponies at Longacres.

She also was curious about life outside her immediate world. She read about UFOs and near-death experiences, and wondered about life on other planets, using her telescope to get the best look she could.

After her stroke, when her husband and children would come to visit, Mrs. Maddox, who could not speak, would try to ease their minds.

During one visit, when Meginniss looked particularly upset at her mother's condition, "She spoke very strongly with her eyes. She was reaching out to me."

In addition to her husband and children, Rex and Robin, Mrs. Maddox is survived by her two younger children, Robert Maddox of Everett and Mary Sepal of Bonney Lake; a sister, Donna Hill of Noxon, Mont.; six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Services were held yesterday.

Beth Kaiman: 206-464-2441 or bkaiman@seattletimes.com.