La Conner Weekly News - Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper

James “Jim” Grobschmit, a longtime resident of Skagit Valley, passed away at his home in Mount Vernon on Friday, July 24 at age 85.

Jim was born in Ballard on January 16, 1930, the son of Mathew and Jennie Zeldenrust Grobschmit. He attended kindergarten through two years of high school in Ballard, when his father retired; they made their vacation cabin into a larger home and moved from Ballard to La Conner, where Jim finished his last two years of high school, graduating with his class of 1948.

After high school, he left for Seattle in the fall to attend Edison Technical College. He was then drafted into the Army in 1951, serving his country in Ludwig, Germany. While in Germany, the Army sent him to Food Service School, where he graduated with the highest grade the school had ever given any student.

He returned home from the Army in 1953. He married Betty Carole Hanstad, and together they raised four children.

Looking for work, which was hard to find after the war, he found a job at the old hotel in downtown Mount Vernon. He then went to work at the Riverside Market. He went on to work for Les Christson at the West Side Thrifty Foods Grocery when the city closed the road to build the West Side Bridge. He left Thrifty Foods and went to work for Sunshine Biscuit, where he became the top sales person for Sunshine. Then as he climbed the ladder, he was the CEO for a Thriftway Food Store in Oak Harbor.

He moved his family to Freeland, and opened another store. He returned to La Conner and was the owner and operator of the La Conner Food Center. Jim’s wife, Betty Carole, died on July 5, 1978.

Jim married Lynn Richter in August of 1979; together they lived a happy life and both retired and took to the road, traveling every winter in their RV for 21 years, seeing all of the USA. Their favorite place to visit was New Orleans by February in time for Mardi Gras.

They never came home without three new friends they had met that winter. Jim would walk the dog, and he always brought a stranger home for a cup of coffee.

Jim was a lifetime member of the Everett Elks Lodge #479 and also the Mount Vernon Elks Lodge #1604; and the Mason Garfield Lodge #41of La Conner.

Jim was preceded in death by his daughter Debbie Byrn.

He is survived by his daughter and son-in-law Lori and Richard Cheney; his son and daughter-in-law Steven and Tamara Grobschmit; his son-in-law Rober Byrn; his daughter and son-in-law Carol Ann and Mark Churchill; eight grandchildren, Mathew and Jesse Sipe, Candice Duclos and her husband Jason, Adam Grobschmit and his wife Lailani, Jason Byrn, Stephanie Krupke and her husband Nick, Madeline and Markus Churchill; and five great-grandchildren.

Memorials in Jim’s memory may be given to the Humane Society of Skagit Valley, 18841 Kelleher Road, Burlington, WA 98233.

Services were held Monday, with arrangements under the care of Kern Funeral Home.