Sakre Edson

Sakre grew up in Southern California before moving north to attend the University of California in Berkley where she studied English, thinking she’d write the great American novel one day. Sakre married her college sweetheart, traveled to Austin, Texas for his doctorate, then to Seattle for his first job. When they divorced, she returned to Austin, where she worked with children in psychological settings and completed a Masters in Special Education (Emotional Disturbance). She then moved East to Philadelphia to help a friend, eventually finding work in a clinic for emotionally disturbed children. After a year, she felt the pull to move back home to the West. For a number of years, she did various research projects before becoming the Executive Director of Project Care Interfaith Volunteer Caregivers in 1989 for seven years. After divorcing once again, Sakre continued as a researcher until following her heart to retire to the ocean in 2011. In 2017, she finished her second book about isolated Quakers in the Northwest: Being Quaker… Where You Are. A third book, Final Choices: A Daughter’s Memoir Comparing her Parents’ Last Journeys, contrasts her mother’s doctor-directed struggle with terminal cancer with her father’s patient-directed choice to use the Death with Dignity Act when he was dying of a collapsed aorta valve, struggling to breathe. She currently lives part-time in Florence with her partner and part-time in Eugene to be near her daughters’ families. She enjoys writing, traveling, reading, photography and, most important, spending time with her grandchildren.