Gary E. Pelroy

Gary had a kind heart, but that heart stopped running on August 28.

He leaves behind family and friends who mourn the passing of a great and good man. Neighbors remember him working around his yard, earphones on, listening to classical music or a good book.

A dog never passed without Gary offering a treat. He timed cross country races for kids at Blue Heron and Port Townsend High School. He provided snacks for athletic teams. He loved Port Townsend and took long walks in Fort Worden and beyond.

Gary was born in Everett, Washington to Edgar Pelroy and Marilyn June Winters. Much of his childhood was spent in the small town of Sultan. As a youth he was an accomplished musician playing violin in the Seattle Youth Symphony. After four years in the United States Air Force as a radar technician, he went back to school and became an electrical engineer. Eventually he and two partners started their own company, Sales Engineering and Associates. He and his wife, Isabelle Noiret, moved to Port Townsend in the mid 90’s building a house overlooking Admiralty Inlet where he could look out to the mountains and the waters that he loved.

Gary was a marathon runner and mountain climber. He cycled and fished. He was passionate about being a native of the Northwest but his adventures also took him to cycle in Vietnam and Utah and to Spain to hike the Camino de Santiago. He recently returned from a cycling vacation in Bend, Oregon and was planning a fly fishing trip to Idaho.

Gary loved to garden. He could build and fix anything and if he didn’t know how to fix something, he would figure it out. Children loved him, from the four year old who having met him once would ask, “When can we see Gary again ?” to the teenager on the cross country team who called him “ the grandfather I never had “ . He loved to cook and share good food with friends. What was most important to him were not his accomplishments and talents, which were many, but his relationships with people.

He is survived by his wife, Isabelle Noiret, his sons, Steven Pelroy and Lucien Opperman, his daughter, Anne Reese, and grandchildren, Luke and Isabelle Reese, and Jesus Duran whom he mentored with the dedication of a parent for the past 12 years.