Cloudy, 40° F
The 90-plus-year journey of David Morales began in El Sauz, Mexico, on the seventh day of June, 1932 and ended in Tulalip, Washington, on the evening of Jan. 30, 2023. It would take him and his wife Carmen across the Rio Grande to serve in the army of incredibly hard-working immigrants who provide America with its orange juice, table sugar, milk and meat. They became proud U.S. citizens in 1979.
In Mission, Texas, they bought their first house and a cow while he worked tending orange trees. Their first child, Socorra, was born there. The winds of work moved David and his growing family across the South and Midwest. From oranges in Texas to cotton in Oklahoma, to hoeing beets, irrigating crops and milking cows in Wyoming, hard work defined David’s life. He worked so hard one of his bosses nicknamed him El Gallito, the little rooster. Later in life he would more than earn the title of “the Energizer Bunny.”
In 1960, when his first child was old enough for school, the stability of year-round work as a farm hand brought the family to rest in Powell, Wyoming. He knew education was the key to his children’s future and all of his seven children finished high school, and three obtained college degrees, as have 10 of his 13 grandchildren. Moving to Byron, Wyoming in 1970, a small house and a two-acre plot became the hub of the Morales family until all the children were grown and it was just Carmen and David left tending the nest. Through all those years David worked for various farmers in the Willwood area south of Powell. Years after his retirement, he is remembered by them as the indispensable hand that made their operations possible.
When the harsh winters of Wyoming became too hard to bear, David and Carmen began wintering in Washington State with their daughter, Socorra, and her partner, Ken. After Carmen’s passing in 2006, it was just David who came for the winter. His decades of hard work were rewarded with a much-deserved retirement during which he was able to enjoy visiting his children and the opportunity to travel the world. The journey that began in El Sauz, Mexico, continued and took him to Italy, Hawaii, Alaska, Mexico and on to Washington State. He loved hiking in the Cascade Mountains and routinely raced ahead of his younger companions.
For the last seven years of his life he became a full-time part of the Priest Point neighborhood on Washington’s Puget Sound. When a group of neighbors cruised to the Mexican Caribbean, David was included. He could watch whales from his bedroom window. He had three dogs that loved him with the intensity that only dogs can muster. His drive for work and his love of plants and animals never stopped. “The Energizer Bunny” just kept going and going and going. He had gardens in several of the neighbors’ yards, tended many fruit trees, picked blueberries, rhubarb, squash and corn, which he distributed generously to the neighborhood. He could be seen taking his morning walks even after they required the assistance of a walker. He was an inspiration for all. For a soft-spoken, unassuming little man, he became a well-known and respected member of the “hood.” Our sadness at his passing was shared more widely than we could ever have imagined.
David’s journey will be carried on in the minds and bodies of his seven children, 13 grandchildren and yet to be counted great-grandchildren, as well as everyone who had the good fortune to have him become a part of their life. We miss him so much.
He was preceded in death by his mother, Filipa Gonsalez, his brother Emilio Morales and his wife, Carmen.
He is survived by his two brothers, Frank Gonsalez (Tula), and Adolph Morales, and his sister, Clementine Morales. He is also survived by all of his children: Socorra (Ken), Clementine (Manuel), Lilly (Bennie), Angel (Jonelle), Mary (Joe), David Jr., and Rick (Terry), and enough wonderful grandchildren and great-grandchildren to keep his memory alive forever.
Funeral Liturgy will be 10:30 a.m., Friday, Feb. 24, 2023 at St. Paul's Newman Center. Interment will follow at Greenhill Cemetery. A Celebration of Life will be at 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24, 2023, at the Alice Hardie Stevens Center.
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