SEATTLE – In his final months, Bill Chambers couldn't walk, but he found peace in motion. Three times a week, his oldest daughter, Patty Cooper, would meet him at the adult family home where he lived with four other World War II veterans.
The caretakers would load him into her Volvo SUV, and she would drive him through the forests, farmlands and suburbs east of Seattle.
He knew the roads well. In about 30 years working for the county, he helped build most of them. “He’d talk about who lived here, who lived there," she said. "There’s a cemetery where his parents and my mom are, and he wanted to make sure I knew, ‘This is right where I want to be.’ He was getting things in order.” Chambers, 97, died March 14 at the home in Kirkland.