Yellow Pages
SEDRO-WOOLLEY — For more than 30 years, Julie Binschus poured her love into the Sedro-Woolley community, but since Sept. 2 it’s been her turn to receive it.
After finishing up her 5 a.m. shift at Food Pavilion that afternoon, and being hugged by some of her co-workers, the Alger woman visited her daughter and her two grandchildren.
Binschus, 48, had been diagnosed with breast cancer the week earlier, and was going to Seattle the next day for a doctor’s appointment. The visit was expected to be short, just 10 or 15 minutes, but Tonya Fenton and her two daughters wished Binschus luck for the next day and also gave her a more than usual number of hugs and kisses.
“We’re thankful that we all got to tell her how much we loved her,” Fenton, 25, said as she sat with her sister Trisha Binschus, 23, during a reception after their mother’s funeral Thursday. “She was our best friend, and she knew that she was our best friend.”
Sedro-Woolley’s Bethel Assembly of God Church overflowed Thursday afternoon with hundreds of family members and friends of Binschus, who was killed along with five others on Sept. 2. A former neighbor, Isaac L. Zamora, has been charged with the slayings and four related assaults.
Binschus was killed in the driveway of her Alger home, before she could make it into the house with the tartar sauce she had just picked up for the fish and chips her husband was cooking for dinner.
That night Fred Binschus became a widower. Lying in the woods after being shot in the leg and back, he heard his wife pull up in her pickup, and the screams and gunshots that followed.
Thursday, their daughters leaned against Fred Binschus as he walked up the aisle for his wife’s funeral.
At the front of the church, a white casket was covered with a pastel knit quilt. A pink bouquet rested on top, along with Julie Binschus’ Food Pavilion name tag and a photo of her with the smile that those who knew her always mention. Behind the casket, colorful hats and scarves she had made dangled from the pulpit.
A slide show of Binschus showed photos of the wife, mother and grandmother — with her daughters, along with a homemade cake, a fresh-caught salmon and an elk rack. Sniffles and sobs filled the sanctuary as the photos spurred memories.
“Father, in times like these it’s hard even to pray, because we don’t know why and how all of these things happen,” said the Rev. Jim Cannon. “Tragedy has struck us right at home. Right here at our doorstep, and look what it’s done — it’s brought a lot of people together.”
More than 500 people gathered for the occasion, standing in the back of the packed sanctuary or in an overflow room to mourn Binschus. About 50 co-workers from the Sedro-Woolley Food Pavilion, who wore their name tags with pink and black ribbons in her honor, sat in the crowd.
“We were going to retire together,” said Binschus’ friend and co-worker Dawn Knight. The two met in middle school, graduated from Sedro-Woolley High School together, then worked for 31 years at Food Pavilion with each other.
“We just thought that it was a fun place to work because we liked people and got to talk to everyone,” Knight said.
It was through the store that Binschus’ vast network of friends was multiplied.
Even her own funeral director, Rick Lemley, said he was touched by Binschus’ loving personality. He would laugh with her at the grocery store, and his children and hers grew up together.
She was just like her picture, Lemley said, always smiling.
After the funeral, Binschus’ body was escorted by a procession of police cars to Sedro-Woolley Union Cemetery. Her family sat at the casket’s side for a brief service, then said their last good-byes.
“I think it’s amazing that that many people from the community showed up,” said Trisha Binschus.
Fred Binschus, who was walking at the funeral despite healing from two gunshot wounds, said the hundreds of people who came to his wife’s funeral didn’t surprise him.
“It doesn’t surprise me at all,” he said. “Because everyone that met her loved her.”
Tahlia Ganser can be reached at 360-416-2148 or at .
