Glen S. Player, MD
A tribute to our father for Father's Day 2025.
The following obituary was composed by daughter Pat Richley and reviewed by Glen while he was on hospice. This was published in DearMYRTLE’s Genealogy Blog 1 Oct 2007, and subsequently in the Seattle Times and the Queen Anne News.
Our father Glen S. Player, MD, 89, died 28 September 2007 at his home in Medina, WA surrounded by family. Born 15 Sept 1918 to Shirley & Myrtle (Weiser) Player in Salt Lake City, Utah, Glen was a great-grandson of original Mormon pioneer settlers of the valley. He moved with his family to Seattle on Queen Anne Hill at eight years of age. As a youth he remembers sailing across Lake Washington to the Kirkland area where there were only one or two small homes. Hiking up Coal Creek in the 1920s did not involve a multi-lane parkway, and in those days camping at Lake Sammamish was considered wilderness backpacking.
A proud graduate of West Queen Anne Elementary class of 1932 and Queen Anne High School 1936; Glen organized and supported class reunions for over 70 years. Following undergraduate studies at University of Washington (1936-1940), Glen received his medical degree in 1943 from the University of Oregon Medical School, now called the Oregon Health Sciences University. He completed post-graduate studies with the School of Neuropsychiatry at New York University 1944-1945 and took related classes at Cornell. During World War II, Glen served in the US Army as a neurology consultant, England General Hospital 1945-1946; and Halloran General Hospital 1946.
At the close of the war, Glen returned to Seattle and set up his office at 1623 Queen Anne Ave North as a General Practitioner and Surgeon. He was a member of the King County Medical Society and was a past National Civil Defense Chair for the American Medical Association. When Glen retired, he had served as a physician for 50 years, caring for the grandchildren of some of his original patients.
As early as the 1950s, Glen showed a keen interest in genealogy. He left a written personal history and recollections of his parents and grandparents, so his posterity would know about their roots. His life spanned a time of great technological advances which he embraced. He participated in the computerized indexing of Ellis Island passenger arrival records.
Glen talked of visits in his youth to his grandmother and ne'er-do-well grandfather’s home in Twin Falls, Idaho, when it was necessary to hand crank his father’s car windshield wipers on a rainy day. Water from puddles would stream up through the floorboards drenching the car’s inhabitants during the journey. He said they thought nothing of sleeping together on bare wood floors, all for the adventure of being on Grandma Eliza’s farm.
His extensive workshop included welding and woodworking tools that he used to create interesting and useful items for his home and office. He could fix anything. Next to the tea house, he designed and installed a pool enclosure with a retractable roof, extending the use of the pool into the cooler months of the year.
Closest to Glen's heart was his love of family and he jumped at the chance for any type of get-together. He finally shared his secret recipe for barbecued salmon. As we think about our loving father, we remember him as a firm taskmaster and a devoted mentor. He was a hunter, water-skier, boater, and inventor. Our family trips to Orcas Island are legendary, so it was a particularly choice experience to have him with us one last time this past summer eating at Bilbo’s and readying for float-boating on Cascade Lake. Glen played the organ masterfully and encouraged the study of musical instruments in his grandchildren. He would take that huge organ over to the cultural hall at church on a little trailer he rigged up, so he could play for dinner dances and other activities.
Glen was preceded in death by his dear wife the former Blanche Myrtle (Jackson) Bennett. Together they shared a full life of family, church, and civic activities. They sang in the Leonard Moore chorale and dedicated nearly 40 years to the choir at the Bellevue 1st Ward of the LDS Church. Glen & Blanche actively supported the Bellevue Philharmonic Orchestra, serving in the BPO League in various capacities. Blanche died on Christmas Day 2006, just a few months shy of their 44th wedding anniversary.
Glen & Blanche combined children from their previous marriages including Mary Clements, Dave (Lilette) Player, Pat Richley, Mike (Becky) Player, Sharon (Steve) Wagner, Daniel (Catherine) Bennett, and James (Nancy) Bennett. Their family has grown to include 14 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. Glen is also survived by his sister Beverly Muir and brother Jack (Laura) Player.
The family wishes to thank friends, caregivers, physicians & Providence Hospice for their thoughtful assistance during the past few years of their parents’ illnesses. A joint memorial service honoring Glen and Blanche will be held at 11 am on Saturday, 13 Oct 2007 at the LDS Church 10675 NE 20th St, Bellevue, WA. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to charity.
Was your name derived from your grandma Blanche’s middle name? Loved the collection of old photos in this piece.
A wonderful tribute.