Obituary: Claudette McLoughlin

After graduation from Klamath Falls High School at the age of 17, she went to Good Samaritan Nursing School, a three-year RN program in Portland, Ore., where she studied hands on in an era where students learned by working countless hours in the hospital. After her graduation, she worked at Good Samaritan in surgery. Working surgery was something you had to like, she always said, and it was a specialty, something she excelled at. She enjoyed the process of getting everything ready to go and sterile. She handed instruments to surgeons as they performed operations.

Claudette met her husband Daniel Patrick (Pat) McLoughlin II while they were both living in Portland, where they were married on May 31, 1958, later moving to The Dalles, where Pat took over the family business, Wasco Title, Inc., in 1963. The two had four children: Kathleen Anne (Kathy), Laureen Marie (Laurie), Daniel Patrick (Dan) McLoughlin III, and Susan Lynn.

Claudette quit nursing while raising her children and then worked for years at Mid-Columbia Medical Center, where she did same day surgery and on the post-op floor.

She was always energetic. She loved going to her kids’ sports events and enjoyed dancing occasionally. She enjoyed being a homemaker and had a wide repertoire of recipes. Holidays were her specialty and she hosted family gatherings that became a family treasured tradition. She also enjoyed gardening and became “Memaw” to one and all once her grandchildren were born. “It’s wonderful being a grandma,” she’d said this year. Her first grandchild, Emily (Bloniarz) Campbell, was followed by Grace and Colin McLoughlin. Claudette was blessed with a great-granddaughter, Camryn Iris Joan Campbell, just a year ago.  

As her son-in-law Fred Bergren stated, “She was an amazing woman who brought out the best in everyone. She gave so much of herself and always wanted the best for everyone. Her family was everything to her and we will miss her dearly.”

Claudette was preceded in death by her parents, her husband Pat, brother-in-law Jim Geraghty and two of her children, Dan and Laurie.

She is survived by her daughters Kathy McLoughlin and Sue (Fred) Bergren, both of The Dalles; son-in-law Chris Bloniarz and daughter-in-law Neita Cecil, both of The Dalles; grandchildren Emily Campbell (Tyler) of The Dalles, Grace McLoughlin of Gresham, and Colin McLoughlin of The Dalles; great-granddaughter Camryn Iris Joan Campbell of The Dalles. She is also survived by brother and sister in-law, Douglas Harold Gleason and Olwynne Gleason, of Woodlands, Texas, nephews Nathan and Brian, great nephew Bixby, of California, sister in-law Mary Geraghty of Bellevue, Wash., nephew Mike Geraghty of Chicago and nieces Liz Geraghty of New York, Sheila Getz of Bellevue, as well as many nieces and nephews.