April 27, 1944 – July 17, 2026
Janet Clara Bream, 82, of Tukwila, Washington, passed away at Valley Memorial Hospital in Renton on July 17, 2026.
Janet was born April 27, 1944, in Casper, Wyoming, alongside her identical twin sister, Judith, to the Rev. Dr. Howard Nelson Bream and Geraldine Ione (Schafersman) Bream. She was raised in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on Seminary Ridge, where her father was a professor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary — ground her family had farmed since before the Civil War. Janet could recite the story of the Battle of Gettysburg vividly and verbatim, a family inheritance she delighted in sharing all her life.
She studied classical music at West Chester in Pennsylvania, where she met John Robert Bethune, and in 1968 they moved with their two young children to Honolulu. There Janet — six feet tall and tireless — helped build the family boat with her own hands and raised her children on the waters of Keehi Lagoon. She became a gifted healer, trained in Shiatsu and the Okazaki tradition of restorative massage at the Ala Moana Hotel and founding the first Swedish massage school in Honolulu. An accomplished celestial navigator, she guided the family’s 35-foot ketch Tane thousands of miles across the open Pacific taking her noon sights and star shots by sextant and standing watches alongside her children.
When her children later moved to Washington for their studies, Janet followed the people she loved and made her home in the Puget Sound area. For nearly two decades she shared her life in Tukwila with her beloved partner, Gene Dale Edwards, who cared for her devotedly in her final years.
Above all, Janet was the keeper of her family’s stories. She carried its whole history — from the Nebraska plains to Seminary Ridge to the open Pacific — with an exacting love for the correct details, and one of her great late joys was mending long-broken family bonds, traveling with Gene to Reno to celebrate her aunt Rachel’s 99th birthday and reunite branches of the family separated for generations.
Janet was preceded in death by her parents; her identical twin sister, Judith Grace Guhl, in 2009; her brother, Stephen “Perry” Bream, in 2021; and John Robert Bethune, the father of her children, in 2010. She is survived by her partner, Gene Dale Edwards of Tukwila; her sister, Patricia Ruth Adams; her children, Richard Sean Bethune and Claudette Renee Bethune; her grandchildren, Erin and Erik Bethune; and many nieces, nephews, and dear friends.
A celebration of Janet’s life will be announced at a later date.
Sail on, silver girl.