Eunice Mae Knowles

Eunice Mae Knowles

Eunice was born to Damon DeWitt Watkins and Florence Ada Watkins on October 6, 1921 in Chauncey, Ohio.  She married the love of her life, Richard Errett Knowles, on April 21, 1946, at Candlestick Point in San Francisco, California.  They traveled to Toronto, Canada where her son George Stephen was born in 1949; then onto Honolulu, Hawaii where son James Damon was born in 1951; then settled in California in 1953, living first in Berkeley, then Pleasant Hill (1957) where she was blessed with her daughter Karen Florence in 1960, and finally onto a beautiful property beloved by all the family and nestled behind Mt. Diablo near Clayton (1978). Eunice worked during the second world war fashioning machine gun firing pins (our "Rosie the Riveter") though this was contrary to her gentle, loving nature.  She received her Bachelors degree in Psychology from the University of Hawaii and spent most of her professional life as a Guidance Counselor working with girls at the Contra Costa County children's shelter.  After retiring, she and Dad traveled throughout Oceania, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe as well as across the United States.  The last few years she spent with the deer, quail, turkeys, hummers, jays, possums, racoons, squirrels, and myriad others that visited her as she sat reading on her patio often with her beloved cat Apache on her lap.

Mom lived a life of faith reading her bible and devotions each morning with her toast and daily orange. Daughter of a preacher, wife of an ordained minister, she helped found the First Christian Church of Pleasant Hill and was a lifelong member of the congregation.  No one epitomized "Do unto others as you would unto me" more than Mom.  She met everyone with a smile even from her hospital bed.  The grace of God flowed through her to all, especially to her three children and their spouses, five grand daughters, and two great grand daughters.

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