Cora Belle McCallum
Cora Belle McCallum passed after a short stay at Whatcom Hospice House in Bellingham, Washington on June 22, 2022 at the age of 95.
Cozy was born to Art and Ethel Urfer in 1926 in their family home on Wiser Lake Road.
Her family has been in America since the 1700’s, and both of her Dean/Courtney and Urfer grandparents were pioneers in Whatcom County, some arriving by 1st Class train in 1889 from Arkansas and Tennessee.
Her family history in the county is well documented in ‘Greener Pastures’, ‘The Saxon Story’ and ‘History of Whatcom County, Vol. II’.
At 15 she moved with her two sisters to a farm purchased by her mother on Massey Road.
Between the three of them, they raised chickens and milked cows.
She attended Lynden schools and graduated from Nooksack Valley High.
Her father provided horses for ‘Call of the Wild’ in 1935, and she recalled seeing Clark Gable during filming near the old Mount
Baker lodge after it burned down. Her uncle was the 1st oral surgeon in Washington in 1914.
She attended Western Teachers’ College during WWII and remembers all but a few young men were off to war. Those that were left were not considered dating material.
After the war, Cora met her future husband and lifelong partner Jim while in college. They both say it was for money, later to find out neither of them had any. They were married in 1947 and spent six years in Shelton, WA. Children Jim, Marianne, Jackie, Scott, Laurie, and Lynne Dee were born over a 15-year span.
In 1955 the family moved to Ferndale where Jim continued as a teacher, and have called it home ever since.
Corky did all the usual “mother of children” activities as well as playing piano and organ.
She was a long-time member of the United Church of Christ in Ferndale where she taught Sunday School, Women’s Bible Studies, and encouraged the women of the church to attend Bible Study Fellowship.
In addition, she spent 25 years ministering to children at an after-school Bible Club.
Cora’s last month was spent at a group home overlooking Wiser Lake in the neighborhood she was born in, and where she repeated stories of riding horses at 2 years old, getting swimmer’s itch, and ice skating on the lake. She could recall most of the people in her life almost to the end.
She was preceded in death by her husband Jim, an infant Jackie, her mother and father, and her sisters Marjorie and Violet.
She is survived by her brother-in-law Malcolm (Diane) of Edmonds, WA, her children Jim of Ferndale, Scott of Seattle, Marianne (Jerry) Knowlton, Laurie (Chris) Bradshaw, and Lynne Dee (Larry) Bricker, grandchildren David McCallum, Karissa (Garrett) Wilson, Melissa (Joel) Swan, Joshua and Rachel Bradshaw (Austin), Dee Anna and Kay Cee Bricker, numerous nieces and nephews, and 10 great-grandchildren which she loved to be near and share strawberry-rhubarb cake, jam, and pie. Services will be at 2 p.m. on July 28 at United Church of Christ in Ferndale.
