Louise was born in Racine, Wisconsin to parents Arthur and Dorothy Arnold in 1931. After graduating from High School she furthered her education at the University of Wisconsin with a major in Journalism.
While there, her dorm room friends set up a blind date for her. Thinking it would be very awkward, and not really looking forward to it, she almost canceled, but her friends persisted and she ended up meeting the love of her life, John Dustrude.
They married in 1952 and after John’s two-year stint in the Army in Korea, they traveled all over Europe for their honeymoon. They found jobs in Norway and lived with a family in a large house for six months through the winter. They traveled by bicycle all over England, and finally wound up in Italy where they boarded a steamer for passage back to the United States.
After eventually moving to Colorado, John found work with the National Forest Service. While living in Pueblo, CO in 1959, they drove an hour east to La Junta, Colorado to give birth to their oldest son Eric because this was the nearest doctor they could find who would allow John in the delivery room with Louise. This was an early manifestation of Louise’s strong sense of and fight for women’s rights and dignity. Three years later in 1962, finding such a doctor was not as difficult and their younger son Tim was born in Denver.
John’s work with the Forest Service kept them hopping around every few years from Denver to Juneau, Alaska, to San Bernardino, California and finally to San Francisco, where after two years they said that was enough and John retired from the Forest Service.
While in San Bernardino when Louise was unable to find fulfilling work, she went back to school to learn Court Reporting. Later, in San Francisco, she was assigned a legal proceeding at Fort Lewis, Washington, and John decided to go along for a week’s mini vacation. So they left the boys with some friends in San Francisco and drove to Seattle, only to find the proceeding had been canceled. But all was not lost as they had friends on Bainbridge Island who said, “Well since you have the whole week now, you should go see the San Juan Islands!”.
“The San Juan what…?”
Louise and John had never heard of the San Juans.
“Trust me, you’ll love it” their friend said, and he convinced them to take the car and drive the big circle - up to Anacortes, ride the ferry through the islands to Sidney, BC, drive to Victoria, take the ferry to Port Angeles and finally back to Seattle.
Without even disembarking the ferry in Friday Harbor but watching from the passenger deck as the cars and passengers loaded and unloaded, they saw a black lab sleeping in the middle of Spring Street, with cars diverting around it so as not to disturb it. They looked at each other and said “I think we’ve found our new home”
So in February of 1971, they moved the family to Friday Harbor to begin the most fulfilling chapter of their lives.
They worked many jobs to make ends meet. At first, Louise had found a Seattle agency for freelancing Court Reporters and she traveled weekly to Seattle for several days at a time. This lasted for more than 2 years before she found work with a new weekly newspaper, The Island Record based on Lopez, where she worked for several years as a reporter and then as part-owner. This is where the 8.8 mile “Record Run” originated, an annual race around Turn Point which has remained a very popular event and is now organized by Island Rec.
Also through this job she really started to blossom, meeting more people and becoming very active in the community. Unfortunately, the Island Record was not sustainable financially and in the end it was losing money every week so they finally had to shut it down. Not long after that, Louise found work with The Journal with John joining about 10 years later doing darkroom work. He retired around 1992 and Louise retired around 1995.
With more time on her hands, Louise became even more active in the community - volunteering, promoting and fighting for politics and policies and organizations that enrich people’s lives - from the SJI Trails Committee to the Land Bank to the Library to the Public Hospital District to Long Term Health Care to the SJC Democrats.
Louise loved the outdoors. Her favorite activities were walking, boating, (especially rowing), hiking and biking.
She also loved to read and “kept the dust off the books” according to one librarian. At any given time she would have 3 or 4 library books on rotation coming from or returning to the library.
Although she lived a long life, her focus was always on quality of life more so than quantity. She was a very strong proponent of death with dignity, and was her own strongest advocate, making sure she would be able to die at home rather than in a hospital or institution with machines beeping and wires and tubes going in and out of her. She strongly opposed life saving measures that would prolong her life if they would also cause her to live in pain. She made a dog-tag-like pendant on a necklace that said Do Not Resuscitate and made trips to the EMS building to make sure all the EMT’s and Paramedics knew that she did not want them performing CPR on her.
In the end, her body finally began to fail - her heart and legs could not keep up with her active lifestyle. In this condition at 93 years of age, staying alive was becoming exhausting. After one too many trips to the ER, she told her family, “It's been a wonderful party, and I love you all, but it's time for me to go”.
She decided for herself to go on hospice. During that time all but one of her grandkids (who unfortunately couldn’t make it in time) came to visit. And then on her last night, with family sitting beside her bed, John told her stories and shared the best memories of their life together. Finally, he said good night and went off to bed and just a few minutes later, she took her last breath before departing on her final journey. The way she’d always wanted: On her terms. On the island. At home with John and family all around.
She is survived by her husband John, her two sons Eric (Jan) and Tim (Shannon), and five grandchildren, Kate (Tom), Tyler, Cody, Alyssa and Courtney.
In lieu of flowers, Louise would have loved for you to donate time or money to the Land Bank or the Library or any community organization that enriches people’s lives.