Beverly Norwood Goetz

Beverly Norwood Goetz

January 26, 1948 – December 9, 2016

On December 9th we lost Beverly; she went peacefully in her sleep.  As her family, and many, many friends and associates knew, she was an incredibly strong, courageous, and loving woman.  A wife, mother, grandmother, and professional who did it all when many thought it impossible. 

Bev was born in San Antonio, Texas, and grew up in Moses Lake, WA. The daughter of Colonel Frank Norwood and Elsie Norwood. She moved to Seattle in 1966 to attend the University of Washington. Bev loved Seattle and felt that the city was the place she would have a career and family.  Seattle soon became her hometown.  She met Larry Goetz while at the U of W in the late 60’s and they married in 1972.

After lengthy travels hitch hiking trough Europe in the ‘70’s and then again with Larry in 1974, they settled down in Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood. They spent the next seven years remodeling a small ramshackle bungalow. At the same time, Bev attended law school at Seattle University. She began her law career first at her own firm and then with the Attorney General’s office. 

Bev always had a deep sense of justice and fair play starting in college with her anti-war activity and support for racial equality and women’s rights. Even though she was often the smallest person in the room, she was always the strongest.  Ready to do what was necessary or rally the troops to get it done. She supported many groups such as Planned Parenthood and NARAL, and volunteered for Northwest Center Kids and the King County Neighborhood Legal Clinic in Greenwood. She was always there to help someone in need.

Her friends and colleagues at the attorney general’s office remember Bev’s generosity with her time and knowledge, encyclopedic grasp of the law, down-to-earth common sense, and her ability to cut through the fog of a case to its nub. Attorneys frequently knotted in her office, arguing and discussing some issue that had arisen in someone’s case. Bev was the quintessential “player’s coach” – an attorney who fought it out in the trenches like everyone else, but who also grew in her legal skills with every case she tried. She was also curious about life outside the law, and was a great friend and intellectual sparring partner to many in the office on politics, literature, baseball, TV and movies, and other aspects of culture.

Bev loved to travel and camp. One of her fondest memories was trekking through the Austrian Alps, walking from hütte to hütte, meeting and talking with other trekkers and mountain climbers. In recent years she was able to join Larry for work as he worked in China and India, places she never guessed she would have been able to visit growing up in a small town in Eastern Washington.

Cooking was another joy, and Bev was a gourmet chef. Few could equal her skills, whether she was cooking for just her husband or a household of friends.  Dinners with Bev were quite an experience, no one ever came away disappointed with the food or the stimulating conversations.

Bev shared her love of life, food, travel, and so much more with her children. She insisted that they could do anything they put their minds to. Bev reminded them on a daily basis that there was no obstacle too great to overcome. She was immensely proud of the people they became and the lives they chose to lead. A few weeks before she passed Bev’s dream of becoming a grandmother was fulfilled with the birth of her first grandchild, Arthur.

Bev is remembered by her husband Larry, daughter Elisabeth and son-in-law Arvin and grandson Arthur, son Charles and daughter-in-law Sarah, and all those whose lives she touched in big ways and small. The family asks in lieu of flowers donations may be made to Planned Parenthood or NARAL in Bev’s memory.