Mildred Lounette Templeton

Mildred Lounette Templeton, 90, died Monday, August 28, 2023 in Seattle, Washington. She had lived at Horizon House since 2011, where residents knew her as Lou.

Lounette was born March 7, 1933 in De Leon, Texas to William Sanders Glover, Sr., a farmer and rural mail carrier, and Myrtle Irene Cogburn, a teacher. She grew up in Winters, Texas, along with four sisters and a brother. She earned a nursing degree in 1953 from Scott and White School of Nursing in Temple, Texas; Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from The University of Texas at Austin in 1985; and Master of Arts in Creative Writing from Antioch University in 1989.

In 1953 she married James Logan Templeton, Jr. of Llano County, Texas. She worked as a registered nurse from 1953 until 1963, when she and Logan were appointed Baptist missionaries to Hong Kong. Over her thirty-year career in Hong Kong, plus two more years in Tokyo, she taught English at social centers, made art for local publications, organized social services at Vietnamese refugee camps and urban housing complexes, supervised kindergartens, developed an English-language kindergarten curriculum used all over Hong Kong, edited newsletters for Baptist mission groups across Asia, and traveled throughout East and Southeast Asia writing human interest stories around breaking news. Dozens of her articles and photos were published by the Baptist Press in their various periodicals over her nearly twenty-year career as a journalist.

Shortly after Logan's death in 1999, Lounette moved from her retirement home in Texas to the Pacific Northwest to be near her daughter's family, long-time residents of Sequim, Washington. She lived first in Victoria, British Columbia, then in Port Angeles, Washington, and for the past twelve years at her beloved Horizon House in Seattle. She was a regular at Seattle's Benaroya Hall, 5th Avenue Theater, Seattle Art Museum, Town Hall Seattle, and other cultural and arts venues. She was active as a League of Women Voters leader. In her Horizon House community, she served on multiple committees, including the Residents Council, and lent her pitch-perfect alto voice to the OK Chorale, with whom she sang until the last weeks of her life. She also continued writing short stories until very recently.

No one who met Lou was long a stranger. Whether she encountered someone at a church meeting, a school function, a rally against gun violence, or simply hiking a trail, she drew people into her orbit of sharing and caring and healing through innate kindness, insightful questioning, and patient listening. She was loved and embraced by the many communities she belonged to over her long life, remaining close to family and friends in Texas, Hong Kong, Victoria, and Western Washington.

Survivors include her three sons: James Logan Templeton III and fiancee Sarah of Taipei, Taiwan, Jay Templeton and wife Ritsuko of Hong Kong, and Samuel Templeton and wife Kirsten Koester of Seattle; her daughter Betsy Smith and husband Henry of Sequim, Washington; her granddaughters, Heather Ruane and husband Justin of Walla Walla, Washington, and Hillary Smith of the United Kingdom; and her two great-grandsons, Henry Ruane and Cooper Ruane of Walla Walla.

Lounette is preceded in death by her husband Logan, parents Sandy and Myrtle, brother Sandy Glover Jr., sisters Nell Lewis, Dorothy Akins, Myra Burton and Judy Hasley.

Lounette's family will inter her ashes beside her husband's grave at Board Branch Cemetery in Llano County, Texas at a date yet to be determined. The family also wishes to express their deep appreciation to the palliative care team and staff nurses of Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle for the exceptional care they provided to Lounette during the last two weeks of her life.

Memorial donations can be made to the League of Women Voters (www.lwv.org/givelwvef) or the James Logan Templeton, Jr Memorial Endowed Scholarship for International Students at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor at UMHB box 8428, 900 College Street, Belton, TX 76513 (https://advance.umhb.edu/give).