Barbara Joan Bates

Barbara Joan Bates died peacefully in her own bed with her Sons by her side on Ash Wednesday / Saint Valentine’s Day in 2024 after a fierce but brief battle with lung cancer. Born Barbara Isaacs in Compton, California on Saint Patrick’s Day in 1943, Barbara married Terry Bates in Occidental, California in 1964. Barbara enjoyed a long and successful career in Nursing, beginning as a LVN in pediatrics at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital in 1964. While Terry attended Humbolt State University until 1967, Barbara served proudly in all manner of nursing disciplines at Dr. George Jutila’s office in Fortuna, California and Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Eureka. Moving the family to McCloud in 1969, Barbara worked at Mount Shasta Community Hospital as an ICU, ER, and Recovery Nurse. While in McCloud, Barbara Bates with Susan Goates and Angie Pelletier were the first three ‘females’ to be official members of the McCloud Volunteer Fire Department as EMTs on the Ambulance Squad. Barbara and Susan continued their nursing career education, both receiving their RN degrees at Shasta College in Redding. Through a series of relocations over the years to support Terry’s career in the timber industry, Barbara became specialized as a Surgical Nurse serving at Bay Area Hospital in Coos Bay, Oregon, at Mercy Medical Center in Redding, and culminating as the Senior Surgical Scrub RN at Grand Ronde Hospital in LaGrande, Oregon until her retirement in 2017. In later years, Barbara was also an Adjunct Instructor for the Eastern Oregon State College nursing program.

Terry and Barbara ultimately settled near Spokane, WA where they lived happily until the day she died. Barbara was preceded by Terry in 2019, and is survived by her Sons Ryan and Eric, her Grandchildren Nya, Tristen, and Wyatt, and Great Granddaughter Laney. Correspondence may be sent to PO Box 401, Chattaroy, Washington 99003.