Ada Lou Wheeler

On September 12, 2023 Ada Lou passed away leaving her friends to mourn the loss of this vibrant, creative woman.

For 28 years Ada Lou owned an advertising and public relations agency in Seattle. She never had any employees because she said, “Then I get to do all the fun things instead of delegating them.” Among her clients were Molbak’s Greenhouse and Nursery, architects NBBJ, philanthropist John Hauberg and McConkey Company manufacturer for greenhouse supplies for West Coast nurseries.

Ada Lou graduated from Whitman College with a degree in Psychology, intending to be a counselor. “ I would have been a disaster,” she said. Instead she fell into a career in professional writing. It began with newsletters from the California Redwood Association when she was living in San Francisco. Later she wrote-company sponsored newsletters for the massive Hanford Atomic Energy operation in Richland, WA. She wrote the first description for laymen of the dual purpose atomic reactor.

Ada Lou moved to Seattle and worked for Bozell & Jacobs the only agency at the time that did both advertising and public relations. She started her own agency in 1965, one of three woman agency owners in Seattle. She outlasted them by decades retiring in 2003.

Burial will be at Lake View Cemetery, in the Smithers’ plot of her pioneer ancestors.

- Care Entrusted to Emmick Family Funeral Services Lake View -