Maxine Slate Kobylk, 90, widow of Lt.Col. Nickolas Ferrell Kobylk, passed from this life peacefully into God’s heavenly kingdom on Feb. 6, 2008, under hospice care in Freeland with her family by her side.
Maxine was born on March 30, 1917, in Seattle, at their first family home. She was the second of four sisters born three years apart. Present at her birth was her late maternal grandmother, Mary Agnes King Shouse. Maxine and her grandmother were very close and shared the same wit, spirit of adventure, determination, strong family values and love of knitting.
In 1923, at six years of age, Maxine traveled with her family from Seattle to Tennessee and Florida to visit other Slate family members. The family of six, including her newborn sister, Virginia, left in February and traveled all summer in a Gardner. Her father often had to repair the car during the seven-month trip. They slept in tents or in private homes opened to them along the way. Maxine loved the trip that sparked her life long interest in travel, history and love of country.
Maxine’s parents were the late Joseph Faust Slate and Florence Eveline Shouse. When Maxine was very young her family moved into a home her father built on Walnut Avenue in West Seattle, where she lived until she was married. She was in the first graduating class of Lafayette Junior High School and graduated from West Seattle High School. While in high school, she was a member of the Girl Scouts, Girls Club of Seattle High Schools and the West Seattle Assembly 18 Order of the Rainbow for Girls. Following high school, she earned a B.S degree in biology from the University of Washington and was a member of the Alpha Omicron Pi women’s fraternity. In the early 1950s, she earned an MA degree in education from Plattsburg State Teachers College, New York.
While at the University of Washington, Maxine met her future husband, a graduate student, Nickolas F. Kobylk. Nick was drafted into the army for WWII, so they were married in Maxine’s home on April 23, 1942, while Nick was on a three-day pass.
Nick became a career U.S. Army and Air Force officer and over the next 30-plus years, he and Maxine lived in nine different states as well as overseas in West Germany and Turkey. While living in Turkey, she and two other ladies traveled the old Orient Express train route and had a chance visit with Hungarian prelate and hero Cardinal Jozef Mindszenty while he was under asylum in the U.S. legation in Budapest.
Throughout the years, the Kobylks were able to travel the world over, but they returned almost annually home to the Seattle area to visit family and friends, and upon retirement in Oct. 1974, they made Oak Harbor their final home. Her extensive knowledge of U.S. history and love of this country’s beauty made her the perfect tour guide during the family trips home.
Above all else, Maxine cherished being the mother of her two sons, Nickolai and Steven. Family life and faith took precedence above all else. She enjoyed a rich professional life as well, both as an educator and as a student with a desire to learn about the culture and history of other people. She taught piano and also first grade at a Christian school in Laredo, Texas. She later instructed high school students in home economics, physical education, history and as the librarian. While living in Turkey in the early 1960s, Maxine taught adult Turkish students American culture, economics and industry under the Senator Fulbright program. Her time in Turkey was also very rewarding spiritually as she and her husband, in 1963, were part of an international team that formed and built St. Nicholas Anglican Church in Ankara, which is still active in 2008.
Maxine was multi-talented and always up to the challenge of trying a new activity. She was a life-long knitter and an accomplished pianist. In Germany, she studied oil painting under Georg Hanke and took concert zither lessons. She still managed to find the time for charitable work with the USO, the Red Cross, and other organizations.
Maxine participated in sports throughout her long life. She was an avid swimmer, tennis player, and hiker/walker. She played racquetball well into her 70s and swam into her late 80s.
Maxine’s was involved in various clubs and activities. She was a member of the Vanderzicht Swimming Pool, the NAS Officers Wife’s Club, the old Whidbey Historical Society, Oak Harbor Garden Club, Oak Harbor Senior Center and U.S. Lighthouse Society. She was a regular on the Oak Harbor Travel Royalty circuit, traveling to South America, China, Australia and the South Pacific.
Maxine is survived by her two beloved sons Nickolai Kobylk, and wife Linda of Charleston, S.C., and Steven J. Kobylk, and wife Josie of Coupeville. There are two grandchildren, Nickolai Kobylk and wife Natasha Kramskaya, and Maria Kobylk Vaughan, and husband, Richard; and three great-grandchildren, Ian, Sophia, and Charlie Vaughan. She is survived by two sisters, Dorothy Johnson and Virginia Eals, and preceded in death by a third sister, Betty Young. There are also several nieces and nephews.
Maxine lived in her own home in Oak Harbor and was sharp in mind and wit until her passing. The family wishes to thank Maxine’s friends, caregivers and Skagit Hospice for their thoughtful care and loving friendship.
Following her wishes, a private funeral service, according to the rites in the 1928 Episcopal Prayer Book, will be conducted followed by cremation. A public celebration of life memorial service will be announced at a later date followed by the spreading of her ashes in Puget Sound in site of Admiralty Inlet. A memorial bench will also be placed in her memory near Admiralty Head Lighthouse. In lieu of flowers, remembrances can be made to Oak Harbor Senior Center or the Oak Harbor Red Cross. Arrangements were entrusted to Burley Funeral Chapel, Oak Harbor.
