PORT ANGELES — John Nutter built a wide web of relationships across the North Olympic Peninsula through his work, his interests and his friendships.
He died at age 54 three days before Christmas at UW Medical Center — Montlake.
His wife, Christy Nutter, said he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer after a visit to the Olympic Medical Center emergency room just 11 days earlier. The illness progressed quickly after it was discovered.
“We didn’t know,” she said. “It was very fast.”
She described the weeks surrounding his illness as disorienting, marked by how suddenly everything changed. The speed of his decline, she said, left little time to prepare.
Support from family and friends has come from many directions. Christy Nutter said one of her daughters lives locally and another arrived from Arizona. John Nutter’s son and daughter, who live out of state, were able to be with him during his hospitalization.
Messages have continued to arrive since his death from across the many parts of his life.
Christy Nutter said her husband moved easily among different circles of friends shaped by the varied chapters of his life — from colleagues and former coworkers on the police force to neighbors and friends connected to their home on Lake Crescent, as well as professional peers, longtime buddies and communities built around his love of airplanes and automobiles.
Each group, she said, reflected a different side of who he was, but all shared a sense of his commitment to the people around him and to the place he called home.
Nutter spent much of his career in public service, where colleagues came to rely on his steady presence and willingness to engage with the community he served.
A celebration of life is being planned at the Cedars at Dungeness Golf Course on Feb. 8 — Super Bowl Sunday — on what would have been his 55th birthday. Christy Nutter said she and her husband first met at a Super Bowl party six years ago.
She said the location may change because the number of people the space can accommodate might not be large enough, given his far-reaching network of friends and acquaintances.
Wherever it is held, she said the setting and tone will reflect what her husband would have wanted: informal, familiar and focused on people rather than ceremony.
A longtime Seattle Seahawks fan, Nutter would have appreciated that the gathering falls on Super Bowl Sunday, she said.
“He would want people to just share stories and watch the Super Bowl with his spirit there,” she said.
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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached by email at paula.hunt@peninsuladailynews.com.
