“Today we lost another of our own.” So wrote a WSB Forums member last weekend, sharing news of the sudden passing of longtime participant/contributor Charla Mustard-Foote. The sentiment goes for the wider community as well; here is the remembrance Ms. Mustard-Foote’s family is sharing:

Charla Mustard-Foote passed away at her home in West Seattle on Sunday, August 2, 2015. Charla was born in Chicago, Illinois, on January 12, 1945. She was the only daughter of Charles Foote and Velma Mustard. K-12 education occurred in Cambria, Michigan, and she graduated from the University of Iowa, in 1970 with a degree in Journalism.

After college, Charla worked as a reporter for several newspapers in the Midwest. In 1979 she moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, to work for the Digital Equipment Company in Boston as a Technical Writer, eventually becoming a Documentation Manager. She worked for several computer companies in the Boston area after that, moving to Sun Microsystems in 1993 as a Lead Technical Writer. At Sun, she rose through the ranks of management, transferred to Cupertino, California, in 1994 and was appointed Director of Product Integration in the company’s development group in 1998.

She met her husband, Robert Shields, in 1996 and they married in 1997. Together they moved to West Seattle in December 1999 so Charla could take a position with Amazon.com, then for the supercomputer manufacturer Cray Inc. Charla started her own consulting firm in 2003 and retired in 2010.

She was a busy professional woman, but she was an avid fan of blues and rock and roll. A voracious reader, she accumulated nearly 3,000 books. She was a Red Sox fan through and through, before changing her loyalty to the Mariners. Of course, the Seahawks were her favorite, even when they played the Patriots.

She is survived by her husband; her stepson Aaron Shields and his spouse Jennifer; and three grandchildren: Cole, Connor, and Katri Shields.

A memorial gathering will be held at a place and time to be determined. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to Heifer International, Arbor Day Foundation, or a charity of your choice.

Please share your memories of Charla in the online guestbook at emmickfunerals.com.

(WSB publishes West Seattle obituaries by request, free of charge. Please e-mail the text, and a photo if available, to editor@westseattleblog.com)