Evelyn Muriel ("Evie") Griffin

Evelyn “Evie” M. Griffin passed peacefully in Lakeview on Monday, September 20, 2021.  She was born July 19, 1935, to Oliver and Norma (Hilburn) Reynolds, in Omak, Washington on the Colville Reservation.

“Hey, “I am gone” don’t cry! It’s not that I was afraid to die; I just didn’t want to be there when it happened.  Don’t cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”

Evie was part Native American from Omak, WA, she left there when she was one year of age and came to Oregon in 1936. Evie was raised by her grandmother Margaret Shinning, whom she loved dearly.  Her mother gave her and her brother Edward to her grandmother to raise, when she was 1 and Edward was 2.  Evie said that looking back in life it wasn’t easy.  Evie started crop picking at the age of 8 and continued until marriage.  She went to a country school called Central Point.  At the age of 12, the school closed so they went to Canby OR and she continued school for 2 more years there, then attended Canby High.  She left high school when she was 16 to marry Ernest Wimer.

She lived on Leland road in Oregon City for 15 years.  She married Ernest Wimer and had three children, Deborah, Wilma, and Otto.  The years were hard.  She and Ernest moved around a lot, all over Oregon.  In 1952 they moved to Lakeview for 6 months and Evie fell in love with this town.  That marriage ended in divorce in 1964.  Evie left the Portland area in 1965 and came back to Lakeview.  Where she met and married Bill Harvey in 1976, after losing him in 1987 she married Dick Griffin in 1990. Evie loved Lakeview and felt it was a wonderful place to have lived. She loved so many people here, especially her second family the Harvey’s, Gerber’s, and Miles.  All the nieces and nephews from her second marriage. 

Evie loved music, she always felt lifted up by music, she loved gospel and old western songs. She sent special love to all her many friends in Lakeview mostly the close ones, Beck, Betsy, Gloria, Janet, Fran, all my cousins, All Eagle’s friends, and Eagles Nest and their families. “Bye”

Evie is preceded in death by; Parents, Grandmother, brother; Edward, daughters; Wilma passed at the age of 22 and Deborah at the age of 58,

There will be a private service with the internment of her remains at the Sunset Park cemetery, at a later date.

There’s a long long trail awaiting, Into the land of our dreams

Where the night gales are singing and the wide moon beam’s

There’s a long long trail awaiting until all my dreams come true

Till when I’ll be going down that long long trail with you.

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