Michele Miriam Yadon Scott

April 22, 1959 – November 18, 2022

Michele Miriam Yadon was born April 22, 1959 in Twin Falls, Idaho.  “Take her home and love her,” the doctors said, “She won’t live to be a year old.”   Micki, you see, was born with a constriction of her aorta which severely limited the blood flow to her lower body.   And of course, in true Micki fashion she persevered.   She would see cardiac specialists in Salt Lake City several times a year, and each time they were awed by her progress.

Micki thrived under the care of her parents, Wayne and JoAnn Yadon.  In 1962 the family moved to Edmonds, Washington.  That was also the year that nearby Seattle hosted the World’s Fair.   Demonstrating her independence, toddler Micki wandered off from the rest of the family at the Fair and was lost for a short time, causing a commotion.  But she, naturally, was non-plussed when caught (i.e. found).  After three quick years, the family relocated to Milwaukie, Oregon.

As the youngest of four siblings, Micki took her share of teasing from Marcia, Mimi and Mark.  This toughened her up, no doubt, but the reality is she was born with an indomitable spirit.  And oh, was she smart.  She attended Bilquist Elementary School where her first grade teachers immediately wanted to move her up a class, but Micki’s parents thought better of it.

As a child she loved her stuffed animals, a whimsy that stuck with her all her life.  One of her favorites was Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent.  She also had a huge sweet tooth.  She and her sisters liked to walk to the Westwood Drug Mart and buy candy bars by the handful, 25 cents each.  As a first grader Micki joined the Camp Fire Girls and relished her annual trip to Camp Onalee, where her mom served as camp nurse.   In fifth grade Micki won a long jump competition, despite her pencil thin legs and restricted circulation in her lower body.  At home she enjoyed riding her bicycle around the neighborhood with the throng of kids who lived on Pine Creek Way.  When summer rolled around, Micki’s whole family took cross country trips to visit family and friends—Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, California and Idaho were top destinations.   Camping trips to the beach and the mountains right here in Oregon dotted their calendar as well. These excursions instilled in Micki a love of travel and a love of nature, not to mention a love of family.

Eventually OHSU’s famed cardiologist, Albert Starr, decided it was time to repair Micki’s aorta.   So at age 11 she had surgery.  The surgery went well but required several transfusions; her blood type was the very rare AB+.  Just another hurdle to jump for the young Mickster.

Micki went on to play varsity tennis at Clackamas High and excelled in her studies, graduating in 1977.  She still had a trace of a wild streak (remember the World’s Fair) and was a bit of a party girl.  Once when she was 15, without a driver’s license, she took the family station wagon and went on a joy ride.  She was pulled over by the Milwaukie police and ticketed.  That was the extent of her outlaw career.

She enrolled in the pre-med program at Oregon State University and attended for a year.  She decided college was not for her.  She moved back to Milwaukie and went to work waitressing at Plush Pippin.  She liked it and it showed; she was a tip magnet.  At some point in her early 20’s, she was hired by family friend, Jim Broyles, as a Workers Compensation claims reviewer for his clients who were self-insured.  She was good with clients and she was good with numbers and this led to her career in self-insured management systems.

Away from work, Micki was a hardcore crossword addict, enjoyed sewing and cross-stitching and liked to relax with a Pabst Blue Ribbon.  She also ran a very popular NFL pool every autumn, and her management of it was crisp, accurate and punctual.  She could have had a second career as a bookie, she was that sharp with numbers.  Her favorite teams, the Buffalo Bills and the Green Bay Packers, brought her more agony than ecstasy over the years, but such is the fate of the sentimental bettor.

Micki never had children because of her heart history, but she was a loving aunt, friend and neighbor.  Her compassion underscored her care for both her mother and father in their later years.  She also took on the responsibility for caring for her grandmother when her parents were wintering in Arizona.

After finishing her career in risk management, Micki settled into a cheerful, comfortable rhythm of family, friends and household activities.  This routine, however, was a lot like her stuffed animals, pleasant but not pulsing.  Her life path, though, was about to take an uncharted turn, a turn that would fill her days with an enthusiasm and her nights with a passion she thought were reserved only for the young.

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It was a Houndog romance, put in motion at a S.E. Portland bar of the same name.  Sharp-eyed Micki, “master of hounds”, liked to relax there with acquaintances at her usual spot at the bar.  Dan Scott, on the other hand, was an unfamiliar stray, wandering in on rare occasions on his way home.  But he was soon to be vetted.  From the first, the repartee between the two was brisk, sassy and funny.  “Tim”, she called him, a term loaded with connotations such as Tiny Tim, the popular but pathetic ukulele player, and Tim Conway, the sad sack comedian.  “Edith”, Dan labeled her in return, referencing the All In The Family TV character which might have been a veiled way of saying “dingbat.”  Tim and Edith sparred, dodged and parried, and as the months and seasons passed by, neither of them noticed the growing attraction.  Until they did.  The conversation then moved to Roma’s on S.E. Woodstock, the wedding took place at the Oaks Pioneer Church, and their decade-long marriage, through tragedy and triumph, became the sweetest example of teamwork and mutual fulfillment you could imagine.

Fishing, crabbing, clamming, volunteering with the Coastal Conservation Association, sport trips to Seattle, Boston and Green Bay, backyard gardening and BBQ’s, entertaining and feeding Dan’s bachelor golf friends….Micki and Dan kept a busy pace.  Micki’s fishing skills even improved to the point where usually she out fished Dan.  Guides and friends who might call when Micki and Dan were on the water often asked for Micki, not Dan, for a report on conditions.  Micki loved it all.  She was at home everywhere with Dan.  And she was equally at home with Dan’s three adult children and his granddaughter; she embraced them and they reciprocated.  They were a family.

Disaster struck, though, when a 100-foot basswood tree fell on Micki in 2017.  Most of you know the excruciating details—Dan and Micki visiting relatives in Minnesota, outdoor dining at a restaurant, nearby tree collapses crushing Micki to a pulp, collapsed lung, nine fractured ribs, cracked pelvis, non-functioning digestive track, flight back to Portland in a gurney on a Lear medical jet, her weight dropping to 80 pounds, the list goes on.  But like the infant Micki, the Mickster persevered.  So did Dan.  Together they beat the odds.

In early 2022 Micki noticed a shortness of breath and some tiredness that were uncharacteristic of her.  It was lung cancer that had spread.  A nine-month all-out war with the malignant monster ensued, with many heart-wrenching ups and downs.  Not once did she complain, not once did she allow self-pity, not once did she quit the fight.  Two days before passing, surrounded by family and finalizing a few more details, she quipped that she “didn’t know that dying was so much work.”  Classic Micki.

Micki said goodbye to Dan and this world on November 18, 2022.  Their time together was not enough, but they are eternally grateful for all that they had.

In her last days Micki asked a dear friend, Andrea from Roma’s, whether she had “made a difference in the lives of others.”  Thinking first of others, which was Micki.  She also confided that she didn’t want us to be sad when she passed, she wanted us to be happy that she lived.  She wanted not to be forgotten, but to be celebrated.

A few months after her passing, Dan found a note at home that the Mickster had stashed away for him to find.  Written in her own steady hand, the note went like this:  “We were early experiments for two people who couldn’t possibly know what they were doing.”

Again, vintage Micki.

When asked what were the odds that he could have met and married a woman like Micki, Dan responded, “I am a lucky dog.”  With Micki now doing football pools and having a PBR somewhere in the universe, the rest of us who knew her are likewise lucky.  Woof!