1914-2004Joy La Belle died December 26, 2004, a few weeks short of his 91st birthday. For 25 years, he was a meter reader for Puget Sound Power and Light. Most meter readers finally move into office positions, but Joy liked being outdoors. He retired in 1976. By that time, he figured he'd walked around the world twice (more than 50,000 miles) on his job. Once he retired, Joy could turn his full attention to his real career. Almost 70 years ago, he bought a tract of wooded land near Olympia. He began building a house on a hill overlooking a waterfall. But a winter storm crushed the unfinished frame. Joy and his wife Carlye moved into a tiny cabin and lived there for several years without electricity or running water. When their son and two daughters were born, Joy added rooms and handcrafted furniture. Eventually, he built five dwellings in the woods. For each, he cleared just enough for construction. The green light of the forest filters through the windows. Since several houses have walls of glass, the woods almost move into the living rooms. Joy had no use for curtains. Like Thoreau at Walden, he had "no gazers to shut out but the sun and moon." What they gaze in on is beautiful and true, in harmony with nature. Joy was a straightforward, hard-working man with a quiet wisdom deeper than that of more articulate men. There was at the core of his being a mysterious strength. He didn't talk much, but his silence was wonderful to listen to. Driving nails or patiently planning and sanding are also ways of giving forms to ideas. What is unspoken is not unexpressed. Not only did Joy and Carlye live quietly in the woods; they belonged to it. Carlye died in 2001 and the last years have been hard for Joy. For him, every place was now a place without her. But, often with his son at his side, he still worked almost every day, laying a brick floor with precision, repairing the steps to the falls, creating a bridge from a white fir that had fallen over the creek. Slender as his frame was, he remained a powerful man. His arms were sinewy from years of splitting wood and raising roof beams. Knowing what to leave alone is as important as knowing what to do. People told Joy he could make a lot of money if he sold his timber. "Why would I want to cut down the trees?" he asked. A doctor told him about an operation for his fingers, which had become gnarled into a fist. "I can still hold a hammer," he said. And he could. Joy was a happy man. Not from trying to be, but because he lived at the center. He understood how to simplify the complexities of life. He did something everyday toward clearing his own path through the wilderness within and without. Joy loved, and was profoundly loved by, his family. He is survived by his son, Jan La Bell of Olympia and his daughters, Jenijoy La Belle of Pasadena, California, and Jinx Brown of Billings, Montana, and also by his grandchildren, Count La Belle of Olympia, and Breeze, Arielle, and Bryce Brown of Billings. Services will be private.

Published in The Olympian on Dec. 29, 2004.