Christine Ann Morrell
Chris Morrell was born Christine Ann Finch on July 11, 1946, in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Ellis B. Finch and Nancy Blackburne McKnight. She passed away January 11, 2024, in Skagit Valley, Washington. Chris was raised on Lake Washington where her dad, Doctor Finch, taught her about boating and navigation. Chris graduated from Bothell High School class of 1964 and attended Western Washington University. In 1968, Chris began working for a startup fishing company Trident Seafoods, as the bookkeeper and radio operator. In 1982 she became Controller of Ocean Fisheries. Chris was one of the founding members of the Women’s Fisheries Network (WFN) in Seattle, that grew to national status with chapters in Alaska and New England. Chris, and soon to be husband Mike, owned and operated an eighty-seat restaurant in Seattle’s Fisherman’s Terminal. All these experiences gave her the incentive to buy a small company that provisioned large fishing vessels operating in Alaska. Her company, Marine Food Management, grew and she added Galley Management and Design to her services. The company provided these services to thirty-five large factory trawlers. She loved donning her white “management” hard hat and boarding boats at docks in Seattle, Anacortes and on the Bering Sea. Chris’s inherent skills were design and gardening. She used these skills to design a beautiful view home in Seattle. This involved jacking up an existing house and adding a new first floor with a three hundred square foot professional kitchen where she entertained friends with her skills as a wonderful cook. In 2002 they moved to their Shelter Bay home where she had a blank canvas of 9,000 square feet of land around the small house. There she created a garden show piece with arbors, curving pathways that begged visitors to look around every corner. It included a shaded wine garden and a spacious deck with the view she loved of Skagit Bay and Whidbey Island.
In 1986 she married Mike sailing on their wooden sailboat Northwind to Port Townsend with friends to exchange vows. After which the newlyweds sailed to British Columbia, CA. Boating was in her blood, and this was apparent as Chris did the navigating and was skilled at the helm. Mike was her first mate and engineer for numerous adventures on the water over the years.
In 2006 Chris became the first recipient of the Seattle Yacht Club’s “Commodore’s Dick Chang Award” for outstanding service on the Reciprocity Committee, which she spearheaded. The committee created a database of hundreds of clubs around the world with a printed guide for SYC members. Reciprocity became one of the top benefits of SYC membership.
Chris will always be remembered as a kind, smart, creative, witty, energetic, elegant individual. Loved and admired by her many friends. As one friend said, “She made you feel like you were the only person on earth when you were around her".” Chris is survived by her husband Mike and hers sisters Sandy Zweifel, Jennifer Collier, and brothers Bill and Mike Finch.
May she rest in the eternal peace she most assuredly deserves.
