Goldalee Claire Perkins Bobinski

Goldalee Claire Perkins Bobinski was born April 10, 1924 in Long Beach, Ca. to Hattie Fay Cranney Perkins and Martin Lorenzo Perkins, their second child and second daughter. She grew up with her siblings Betty, Richard, Robert, and Gayla in Murtaugh, Idaho, working on the family's farm, and attending both the local schools, where Claire graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1942, and the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in nearby Twin Falls. After graduation she moved to San Diego, Ca. to join her older sister Betty who was a hospital dietician there, and where Claire found work as a secretary at Ryan Airfield, to be able to attend U.C.L.A. with the plan to major in Journalism. There she met and married Marine Corps 2nd. Lieutenant Maxim John Bobinski of Long Island, New York, after a whirlwind courtship near the end of WWII. They left California late in 1945 to move to Long Island where her husband's family lived and worked. They moved once again, in 1952, with their son John Robert and daughter Mary Joan, and lived in St. Augustine, Fla., where they had another daughter, Barbara Claire, in 1953, and where her husband managed another family farm until 1970. Claire was proud of her Pioneer genealogy that she could trace back to the church's beginnings, with family members on the Cranney side knowing both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, as they all came ever-further West over the years. The Perkins' side were converted in Glamorganshire, Wales by missionaries, leaving behind the difficult life of coal-mining for a better future. Like many and most, life was hard, but they all had their faith to see them through. When the opportunity arose to move once again, in 2003, to the Puget Sound Washington area, Claire, by now a widow and grandmother, found her way back to the church. These last years were, for her, a 'full circle return' where she found much comfort and pleasure in the friendships extended to her, through several more moves and as many wards. Claire was 98 years old. She is survived by her sister Gayla, her son John, her daughters Joan and Barbara, and her grandson Sean Sebastian.