Samantha Kate Grismore (Downing)
February 11, 1967 - April 12, 2005
Residence: Seattle, Washington
Samantha Downing, 38, "lived every moment"
According to family lore, Samantha Downing was named after a female relative who, in the early 1800s, robbed and pillaged as a pirate on the Mississippi River.
She inherited her namesake's spitfire personality and independent spirit, but instead of piracy, she became a powerful presence in the West Seattle community-theater scene.
Family and friends said she was the kind of woman who attacked life and fought hard for what she wanted. She channeled that same energy into her fight with cancer.
Diagnosed in 2002 with a rare and aggressive form of the disease that usually afflicts men in their 60s, Mrs. Downing outlived her doctor's six-month prognosis by two years. On April 12, she died in her husband's arms. She was 38.
"She never gave up," said longtime friend Mary Springer, the artistic director for the community theater company Twelfth Night Productions. "She lived every moment, every moment."
Samantha Kate Grismore Downing was born Feb. 11, 1967, to Gerry and Carol Grismore, an electrical engineer and computer programmer. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay area and was a 1985 graduate of Palo Alto High School in Palo Alto, California.
She was 17 when she met Todd Downing in drama class, beating out two other girls who wanted to ask him out. They kissed for the first time on Nov. 11, 1984, beginning a 20-year love affair. They married in 1990.
"We got to grow into our skins together," said Todd Downing. "We knew each other off the bat and we were married in a moment, regardless of when we had a wedding."
Mrs. Downing, who loved the theater from an early age, attended San Francisco State University and majored in film direction. But both she and Todd Downing dropped out of school a semester shy of earning their degrees.
The summer after they graduated from high school, the Downings passed through Seattle en route to the World's Fair in Vancouver, B.C. They fell in love with the city and relocated here in 1991, first moving to Renton before settling in West Seattle. Beginning in 1994, Mrs. Downing was a stay-at-home mom to her son, Tyler, now 10, and daughter, Kayleigh, 7.
"About 1998, Sam started to get the itch for the stage again and that's when she fell in with the Pandemonium Players," her husband said of the nonprofit theater company that focuses on mentoring teen and college-age actors. Mrs. Downing went on to work with local theater companies ArtsWest, Theater Schmeater and Twelfth Night Productions.
In 1999, the couple established a home-based publishing company, specializing in role-playing and adventure-game material, Todd Downing said.
In summer 2002, a CAT scan following kidney-stone surgery revealed that cancer was attacking Mrs. Downing's liver. It would eventually spread to her lungs, pelvis and spine.
Immediately after her diagnosis, Mrs. Downing started writing an online journal, detailing her treatment. It was her hope, her husband said, that other young cancer victims would be inspired by her battle with the disease. Before she died she received dozens of e-mails and letters from strangers who had been touched by her words, Todd Downing said.
After a 15-year hiatus from acting and while undergoing intense chemotherapy, Mrs. Downing returned to the stage last summer for a local production of "Bye Bye Birdie."
"It was marvelous, and she loved every minute of it. She pulled off a performance that had people just rolling," her husband said.
In February, Mrs. Downing's oncologist delivered a blow: The chemotherapy wasn't working. She died a few weeks later.
Mrs. Downing, who donated her body to the University of Washington for medical research, didn't want a funeral or memorial service, her husband said:
"She said, 'I want none of this somber eulogizing. Throw me a party.' "
In addition to her husband, Todd Samantha is survived by her parents and children, along with a brother, Doug Grismore Lemaire of Bellevue.
Medical expenses consumed the couple's retirement savings and the children's college funds and maxed out the couple's credit cards and home equity. A special fund, The Samantha Downing Memorial Fund c/o Todd Downing, has been established to help her family pay off medical bills. Donations can be made at any Wells Fargo Bank branch.