Friday, May 17, 2024
Pamela Marie (Keating) Herbst was born in Denver, Colorado, on June 1, 1948, to Paul Hepburn Keating and Elizabeth (von Detten) Keating.
She was the eldest sibling of Sheila, Scott, and Brian Keating; mother to daughter Lindsay (Herbst) Switzer, of Kansas City, Missouri; and wife to husband and soulmate, Clay E. Herbst III, of Kansas City, Missouri.
She was also a doting "Yaya" to her only granddaughter, Naomi, and loved her son-in-law, Aaron, too.
In 1968, Pam dropped out of college after a serious bout with mono. Instead of returning to school, she promptly decided to travel to Europe to hitchhike. On October 1, 1968, Pam's fate was sealed when she met the love of her life, Clay, in Wiesbaden, Germany.
For six weeks, they spent time together getting to know each other before Clay was shipped off to boot camp.
Much to their chagrin, Clay's first set of orders in the U.S. Air Force were to Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, three miles away from Pam's house. The rest, you can say, is history.
Pam and Clay married in 1970 and spent the next 53 years together. They raised Lindsay in Edmonds, and were loving and committed parents. In the late 1990s, Pam returned to school at the University of Washington. She graduated in 1999 at the age of 51 with a B.A. in Liberal Studies.
She was warm, creative, outgoing, smart, compassionate, resilient, classy, calm, poised, tough, sensible, and so much more.
She loved her family, friends, British mysteries, strongly brewed iced tea with extra ice, lemon-flavored anything, reading, being a Yaya, traveling, the ocean, her walks on the beach in Edmonds, caramels (the good ones), art, flowers, and much more. She saw beauty in the ordinary and truly lived every single moment she was on this earth.
Pam passed away on July 9, 2023. She was preceded in death by her father, mother, wonderful stepfather John Eldredge, and brothers.
She will be sorely missed. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to Lucky Rescue 13.
