Doris Jo Ufford Coombes passed away on Jan. 16, 2025.
She was born on Dec. 11, 1934 in Scottsbluff, Neb. the eighth and last child of Chester and Eva Moon Ufford.
A brief accounting of her 90-year life story:
The depression brought hardship to the family so they moved to Oregon after securing employment at the Army depot near Hermiston. Doris started second grade in Hermiston and graduated from Hermiston High in 1952.
While working in the office at the Mayflower Farms creamery in Hermiston, Doris met Ben Coombes, a new milkman just returned from the Korean War. They married in 1953 and lived a lifetime romance of 65 years until Ben’s passing in 2018.
Doris and Ben bought Ben’s family farm in the Stanfield Echo Meadows and raised four children, Deanna (Mike) Frantum, David and Raquel Coombes, Duane and Elizabeth Coombes and Della (Tom) Jackson. There are 12 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
Doris was a hard worker with a loyal and cheerful heart. When she found employment, it was usually cooking/kitchen related – Hinkle Hotel and Restaurant, Stanfield School District cafeterias, Camp Elkanah and Stanfield Senior Center (volunteer). She loved serving others, especially at the dinner table. She served large portions and no one minded. Her potato soup will never be equaled and her dinner rolls were perfection. An apple pie was a special way for Doris to deliver heartfelt gratitude for kindness shown her.
It was on the family farm where adventurous memories were formed and Doris was at the center of the fun. Family visited in the summers for a taste of
country life. She cooked big family-style meals daily. Going out to eat meant cook-outs up near the canal where the sagebrush grew tall and the Oregon Trail wagon ruts ran through. Hill Meat Company hotdogs cooked on willow sticks over the fire with toasted marshmallows for dessert were five star. When the sun dipped behind the Emigrant Buttes, Ben would play his harmonica and the coyotes would sing back. There was more cow milking, horse riding, hay bailing, animal feeding, bread baking, irrigating, jam making, hayrides, fishing trips, canning and garden tending to come. Doris and Ben’s story included lots of work and difficulties but a joyful, peaceful resiliency was what others came to experience alongside them.
Doris attended Stanfield Baptist Church. She taught the kindergarten Sunday school class for many years and loved each child. Her various involvements through her church family and community were a vital source of connection, service and joy. Family and friends trusted her fierce loyalty, faithful prayers and strong, helpful hands when in need. She was a vegetable gardener, maximizing production to share with all in need or want. She mastered seeing potential and making beauty from the overlooked. Doris was kind and creative and actively looked for ways to be a source of blessing. Doris loved personal stories and encouraged her family to recount stories of life on the farm and of God’s provision. In doing so she is honored, keeping all aware that each unique contribution of love and faithfulness throughout life builds on her legacy of giving with a cheerful heart.
A memorial service will be held on Saturday, May 31, 2025 at 1 p.m. at the Stanfield Baptist Church.
Private burial will be at the Pleasant View Cemetery, Stanfield.
Please share memories of Doris with her family at burnsmortuaryhermiston.com.
Burns Mortuary of Hermiston is in care of arrangements.
