George Edward Hughes 2/1/1914 - 3/1/2010

On March 1, 2010 the Simmons/Kelly family lost a wonderful member George Edward Hughes.
George was 96 years old and had lived a great life. He was born and lived in Seattle pretty much all of his life, except for a short time he lived in Alaska while he did some mining work. He was employed at Boeing as an engineer and retired from there in 1978. George enjoyed sports, playing golf until his late eighties when he could no longer and was a HUGE Husky and Mariners fan. George was also a statistician for many years for the U of W football games. He was married twice and although never had any children of his own doted on his nieces, his nephews and great nephew and niece.
Since I have only been in the family for the last eleven years I don't have quite as many memories as the rest of the family does but I have a few that I would like to share with you as well as some stories.
One of my favorites is how he met his first wife. George and a friend had decided that they were going to go and be on the maiden voyage of the Kalakala Ferry in 1935. There was going to be music, dancing, woman and booze so what young men didn't want to be on it. Well for whatever reason they didn't have tickets or the fair to get the tickets and they snuck on. I could be wrong by this but for some reason I want to say they got kicked off and re-snuck on. Him and his friend ended up meeting two young ladies whom one of them George ended up marrying.
I'm not sure how long that marriage lasted but sadly they did get a divorce but not to discourage George who met the love of his life Francis(Fran) who proceeded him in death.
He was a walking history book and I loved sitting and listening to him tell stories about him and his friends drinking during the prohibition, his pesky little sister Mary Bess(Grammy) who always followed him around, working at Boeing during the wars and how they had constructed "neighborhoods" on the property so enemies wouldn't know what was there. During the holidays George loved to be with family but you could always count on him disappearing and finding a t.v. if there was a sports event on, especially if it were golf, Mariners, or those damn Huskies.
George was also a ladies man. He had many admirers but I think anyone who came in contact with George couldn't help but adore him. Every day he had cocktail hour with one of his lady friends. George loved having him a martini but don't try to give him a foofy one he was strictly a vodka and vermouth kinda man. He also would drink Manhattans. This continued up until a few weeks before he left us.
We were lucky enough to have lived close enough to see him and have him get to see Alyssa grow. Alyssa enjoyed going over there because George was always generous with his cookies he had laying around and would share them with her. On our last visit with him before he left us he told Alyssa to be a good girl and she gave him a hug and even shared her blanket with him.
Although he is gone he will never be far from our hearts and our thoughts. We love you and miss you George!