SEQUIM — Olympic Game Farm founders Lloyd and Catherine Beebe were all about unconditional love of family, and that love was spread around to their extended family — the game farm’s animals that they raised and even invited into their home as their guests.
And the laid-back Sunday celebration of the Beebes’ lives and times reflected just that, drawing more than 200 family and longtime friends to the Sequim Elks Lodge, where they fondly remembered the couple.
S. Lloyd Beebe died Jan. 6 at age 94, and his wife for 71 years, Catherine, died two days later. She was 88.
Lloyd Beebe was born May 2, 1916, in Huntingdon, B.C., to American parents, Charles and Jessie Beebe.
Catherine M. Beebe was born Jan. 11, 1922, in Nooksack to Floyd and Jessee Massey.
Lloyd Beebe and Catherine Massey were married Nov. 28, 1939.
“My first contact with animals was with my grandfather,” said Robert “Bob” Beebe, the Beebes’ grandson who now manages the game farm on Ward Road that opened in 1972 and has since become a major North Olympic Peninsula attraction.
Disney connection
Before the farm opened, the Beebes worked many years with Disney Studios, filming numerous animal movies, a great source of pride for them, Bob Beebe said.
He unveiled a video that documents their lives and work, which he said is about to be released.
“Wherever there was little animals, I was always trying to make friends with them,” Lloyd Beebe said during the final interview for the video last spring at their home that overlooked the 87-acre game farm.
Actor Dan Haggerty starred in the TV show “Gentle Ben,” which featured one of the Beebe’s tamed female grizzly bears, Bozo.
In the video, Haggerty says: “If it wasn’t for guys like Lloyd, we wouldn’t have the wonderful world of Disney.”
The video features a photo of Lloyd with Walt Disney, the founder of the Disney dynasty, from movies to Disneyland.
‘Dr. Dolittle’ thing
Haggerty recalled Lloyd Beebe as a man who kept to himself and had “the Dr. Dolittle thing” going on when he talked to the animals, be they bears or cougars.
Bob Beebe remembered his grandfather talking to the animals as if they were people, promising the retired furry movie stars they would be well taken care of.
“He made promises to the animals and always kept them,” Bob Beebe said.
Lloyd Beebe was a logger, huntsman, woodsman, Antarctica explorer, animal trainer, director, cinematographer and property rights advocate on many issues affecting Clallam County residents along the Dungeness River.
Lloyd also was instrumental as an adviser to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife and others in wildlife conservation, rehabilitation and animal housing facility design.
Seamless, effortless
Catherine Beebe was the consummate businesswoman, socialite and homemaker who somehow made everything so seamless and effortless to all who knew her — a true force of nature, Bob Beebe said.
The Olympic Game Farm originally started as a filming location for Walt Disney in the early 1950s — formally called Disney’s Wild Animal Ranch.
The game farm was originally designed as a holding facility for the animal actors between movie shoots by Disney Studios. This “in-between” time was used to train the animals for future movies. Movies were filmed there until the 1990s.
They include “The Vanishing Prairie” and “The Incredible Journey” (the first films on the farm), “Charlie the Lonesome Cougar,” “King of the Grizzlies,” “Never Cry Wolf” and many others in Disney films and Disney’s True Life Adventures documentaries.
Clay Richmond, who worked with the Beebes for 36 years on the game farm as animal manager, said Walt Disney put great trust in Lloyd’s ability to shoot animals in the wild.
“He was quiet in life, but he impressed enough people” that he became successful in the business, Richmond said.
Disney, a perfectionist who always wanted to have the best of everything, sent Lloyd to Antarctica for filming.
“He was the only one to bring back Disney footage because he knew how to keep the camera warm in cold weather,” Richmond recalled. Beebe used a heavy parka to protect his equipment and film from freezing and shattering, Richmond said.
Sense of humor
Craig Massey, a Beebe nephew on Catherine’s side of the family, said Lloyd impressed him when he led giant bears around the farm with a rope around their neck.
Recalling Lloyd’s subtle sense of humor, Massey said he once asked if he could lead the biggest grizzly, Teddy, around.
With Teddy, he recalled Beebe saying, “It’s kind of a tossup who leads who.”
He also remembers warily sitting across the Beebe family’s kitchen table with a Canadian cougar sitting in a chair on the other end of the table “just looking at us.”
‘Unconditional love’
Beebe family friend Bill Humphreys remembered the couple for their “unconditional love.”
Lynn Chesnut, his voice choked with emotion, said it was a privilege to know the Beebes over the past 20 years.
“If you needed something, he was right there,” Chesnut said, calling the Beebes “a true example of people of God.”
Bob Clark, who grew up on his family’s farm just north of the Beebe farm, said he regrets not having turned off Ward Road to visit the Beebes one last time before they died.
“I may see them again, because if there is a heaven they’re there,” Clark said.
Sequim native Ryan Kent Smith, an aide to state Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, read a resolution sponsored by Hargrove and several other lawmakers that was read and adopted Thursday on the Senate floor.
The resolution recognizes the Beebes for assisting the state with the conservation and rehabilitation of wildlife for decades.
“These visionaries of Sequim, after 71 years together, passed away this month within two days of each other, leaving Sequim and the 24th District less for it,” the resolution states.
“The Beebes have left a rich legacy to the people of Clallam County, the 24th District and the State of Washington,” it states, concluding: “That the Washington State Senate honor Lloyd and Catherine Beebe for their lifelong commitment to each other, their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, their animals, and the betterment of the Olympic Peninsula.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
