Pamela Faith (Bice) Crowder

In the early afternoon of July 10, 2016, Pamela Crowder, beloved wife, mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, cousin… friend… family, passed away.  Words cannot fully encompass what Pamela meant to all of her friends and family, but we try anyway…

Pamela was both a dynamic force and a gentle soul; and her sense of self was unparalleled.  She grew up and came of age in the close-knit communities of Lockeford, Ione, Lodi, and Dixon.  As she grew and went to school, her travels took her to the big city of San Jose, CA, and even across the country to Virginia.  Neither her small-town roots nor her big city education defined her.  She was neither country girl nor city folk, but both of those elements were a part of her identity. 

Pamela was both passionately religious and fiercely independent; she believed in God, his love, and the Salvation of Jesus Christ. Though she held her beliefs in her heart, she did not proselytize or push those beliefs upon others.  Instead of choosing religious isolation, Pam welcomed friends and family of other faiths into her personal circle, to celebrate the Life that her religion informed, rather than strict dogma.  This even extended to her own children, as she allowed both to find their own spiritual fulfillment, rather than pushing hers.

Pamela was the both the center of her family and a satellite orbiting around the centers of others.  Her journeys took her far from her beginnings in Central California, but she returned to the Sacramento Valley, within a few minutes travel of her mother and siblings’ homes in Dixon.  In Sacramento, she formed her own family, as a wife and mother, and operated as the beating heart of her husband and children’s lives, where she was both the literal and figurative foundation through crisis and celebration.  Eventually, she found some of her greatest joy when she became a grandmother to Tristan, Zoe, and Gavin.  In her three grandchildren, she found a way to stoke and rekindle, all of the light, energy, and love she continuously gave to others.

Pamela was constantly exploring, seeking new adventures and finding new friends, throughout her life.  She embodied Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken, and avoided the straight lines between two points.  Instead, she favored the backwoods and the trails that wandered through glens and down into gullies and along meadows and streams, absorbing and reflecting the beauty she found on these paths.  In New York, she witnessed the glory of Sacramento’s only professional sports team’s trophy, as her daughter and the other Sacramento Sirens, defeated the New York Sharks for the 2003 Independent Woman’s Football League Championship.  In 2012 she watched as her son gave a lecture on World History in a class he was teaching at UC Santa Cruz.  She traveled with her husband, from Mendocino to Missouri, and to and through all the quiet, secret places marriage brought them.

These are small snippets from her life, not her totality.  They join with your moments and memories of her, the love she held for you, and that you returned.  She is gone; free now.  Her release is our loss, but our remembrance of her life and the joy she brought, endures.  Of what it meant to be human, Kurt Vonnegut, in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, wrote, “Hello babies.  Welcome to Earth.  It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter.  It’s round and wet and crowded.  At the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here.  There’s only one rule that I know of babies – God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’” 

Pamela Crowder was kind.  God bless you, Pamela. 

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