OBITUARY David Stewart Belvin August 1, 1923 – September 16, 2018 David Belvin passed away peacefully September 16, 2018 after a two year battle with heart disease and cancer. He was born in Brownwood, Texas on August 1, 1923 to Stewart and Marguerite Belvin, and lived through the Great Depression as a young boy. His father worked hard as a wholesale grocery salesman and was known for growing the largest amount of vegetables on the smallest plot of land in town.
David grew up tinkering with everything much to his parents’ chagrin, and joined the WWII Navy when he was 17. He ate bushels of carrots to improve his eyesight in order to be accepted into service after first being declined. He became a Machinists Mate First Class and worked on over half of the ships in the Pacific Fleet.
During his 52 months of overseas service he found himself at Pearl Harbor, Australia, Japan and in far reaches of the South Pacific. He performed all manner of repair and improvements to damaged ships and guns, and carried out design improvements to torpedoes enabling them to hit their targets. During this time his brother was lost at sea when his ship was sunk in a valiant naval battle off the island of Samar, part of the Leyte Gulf Battle to retake the Philippines.
At the close of the war David’s returning ship passed through Seattle only because it was low on fuel. There he met his lifelong partner and wife Helen Buschmann, whom he married in 1948 after completing his degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He was the first in his family to graduate from college.
He took a job at Boeing and the couple made their home in Seattle where they raised four children. He worked on every Boeing airplane from 707 to 747, the SST, on Cold War military aircraft and missile applications, and several of the NASA space programs including the Saturn V rocket, Apollo Spacecraft and Space Shuttle. David loved to fish, ski, and travel, and his Navy years inspired in him a love of watercraft and maritime navigation.
He owned five boats over many years and used them to fish and take family vacations to British Columbia. He is survived by his wife of 70 years Helen, daughters Diane and Ilene, sons Terry and Steve, 15 grandchildren, and nine great grandchildren. A memorial celebration will be held Sunday September 30 at 2 pm, at Bellevue Presbyterian Church, 1717 Bellevue Way NE, Bellevue, WA 98004.
He will be interred at Acacia Memorial Park in north Seattle. Donations may be made in his name to The Salvation Army or Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission in lieu of flowers.
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