‘Heart and Soul’: Former Chehalis Library Manager Remembered for Service to Community

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Corine Aiken, the former Chehalis Timberland Regional Library manager and educator known for being “intelligent, beautiful, of the heart and soul” and “passionate,” died unexpectedly on Tuesday, May 4, in Puyallup.

She was 71.

Aiken was well-known in both the Lewis and Pierce county communities as an approachable, loving, enthusiastic person who was always getting involved in community happenings. She was perhaps most well-known for her leadership role in opening the Vernetta Smith Chehalis Timberland Library building in 2008.

She died after a three-year battle with lymphoma, said Gerda Hunter, 71, a Puyallup resident and 57-year friend to Aiken, though her cause of death as of press deadline had yet to be officially determined.

“Everybody loved her and she was part of many different clubs,” Hunter said, describing her friend as “intelligent, beautiful, passionate and lots of fun.”

“What I admired about her was her service to the community and her care for others and her joy for life,” she said.

The two met when they were young teenagers in Puyallup. Hunter said they were “sisters of the heart” since neither had any siblings, and the two grew close over the years.

Aiken, who was born in Frankfurt, Germany, was raised both abroad and in the U.S. while her father served in the Army, according to her obituary. Early on, her family lived in Florida, Nebraska, Seattle and, eventually, Puyallup.

She graduated from Puyallup High School in 1968, attended the University of Washington and eventually graduated from University of Puget Sound with a master’s degree.

She taught at Pierce College and at Tacoma Community College, where she would eventually meet her first husband, Jeff Burrus, who was a student.

“For me, it was just another credit,” Burrus told The Chronicle, “and it turned into so much more.”

Burrus said they met in 1976; she was teaching a class on law and society, on assignment from University of Puget Sound, and he was going back to school to get a second degree in business administration.

“The other thing I can say is that we are complete opposites, so it’s definitely true that opposites attract,” said Burrus, who lives in sunny Morgan Hill, California.

Burrus said he asked Aiken out on a date during a class outing after the semester had finished up. They started dating and, after a year, were engaged.

“Initially, it was her intelligence. And it was her beauty, and then, as I got to know her, it was her honesty,” Burrus said.



Edna Fund, former Lewis County commissioner and self-proclaimed “history sleuth,” said Aiken was a real visionary.

“She did a lot for our community, that’s for sure … Wherever she was, she was always gaining information, she was always searching for something that could be beneficial to the library, something that could be helpful. She was a community librarian 24 hours out of the day,” Fund said. “She was a cheerleader for reading in this area, and she hired really good staff too.”

Aiken was instrumental in getting the current Chehalis library built with private donations and without accruing any debt or mortgage. She also had the idea to install a drive-through window at the library.

Fund was a library trustee for more than 10 years and met Aiken in 2001. Aiken was working as a reference librarian at that point. She said Aiken was a very innovative librarian who was always looking at what a library could be instead of what it currently was.

“Corine was a great friend and supporter of libraries, and was instrumental in helping our beautiful library get built back in 2008. We will miss her,” wrote Chehalis Timberland Library staff on Facebook.

Brian Zylstra, a former member of the now-defunct Chehalis library board and current Timberland Library Board of Trustees member, knew Aiken around the time of the campaign to build the new library.

“I always enjoyed seeing Corine. She always brought a smile to my face and always made you feel welcomed,” he said.

She was always vibrant, vivacious, energetic, warm, personable and “always made you feel good when you talked to her,” he said.

One moment stood out to Zylstra, though: on an unusually sunny October day, they held the opening for the Vernetta Smith Chehalis Timberland Library. They had more than 1,000 people there and it was very festive, he said, and he was asked to speak at the ceremony.

“Right after my name was called to speak, I was walking up to the podium and I saw Corine and I walked up to her and just gave her a big hug and told her ‘Hey, we did it.’ Meaning, that we finished our project and we had a lot to be happy about,” he said.

Aiken was diagnosed with cancer in December 2018, Burrus said, and received treatment around Seattle and Puyallup. Though she lived alone the last few years of her life, friends and family were always nearby.

She was admitted into MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital when her condition took a sudden turn for the worse, Hunter said.

“I think that there’s so much emotion involved that you get your brain wrapped up in how you would explain someone,” she said, noting that she was certainly loved in both her Chehalis and Puyallup communities.

Burrus said, though they’d been separated for 25 years, he and Aiken always made an effort to talk on Sundays.

Over the phone, she would first tease him about that sunny California weather, but discussions always come back to her home, he said.