Karen Ottem

Seaside

Aug. 5, 1958 — July 23, 2024

Karen Jo Ottem, 65, of Seaside, died of complications of diabetes on July 23 at the Oregon Health & Science University Hospital Intensive Care Unit in Portland.

She was born Aug. 5, 1958, at the Laon-Athies Air Base in France, to Lt. Col. Gerald Arthur Ottem and Josephine Lucille (Kelly) Ottem. She lived there with her family in the village of Charmes, France, for two years, then began the journey of military life with her family to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and Ramstein Air Force Base in West Germany, finishing grade school and junior high school at Ramstein.

In 1973, her father retired from the U.S. Air Force and moved the family to Munich, West Germany, where he became employed at Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm to work on a NATO aircraft project. After graduating from the Munich American High School, she attended the University of Maryland Munich Campus.

She remained in West Germany until 1983, then moved to Atlanta, to take a position with Spiegel. In 1994, she transferred to the Spiegel-owned bank in Beaverton to be closer to family.

In 1995, she purchased an office and art supply business in Seaside, Aardwulf (formerly known as The Stationery Store), and later purchased a commercial property on S. Holladay Drive in Seaside, and moved the business, renaming it The Paper Clip. Many of her customers and other small-business owners became good friends, and she welcomed their pets, since she always brought Klaus and Simone to work.

Throughout the years, while living in Seaside, many of her true and solid friends from her “growing up” years in West Germany visited from Europe and across the U.S., and reminisced about the many great adventures and fun memories they shared when traveling throughout Europe and the Middle East.

She was preceded in death by her father in 2008; her mother, in 1991; and a brother, Capt. Richard Kelly Ottem, an Air Force pilot, in 1975.

She is survived by a sister, Lynn Ottem, of Seaside, brother and sister-in-law, Mark (Buz) and Janet Ottem, of Seaside, nephew, Jacob Ottem, of Seaside, and niece, Dana (Ottem) Corder, of Seaside. She has cousins in Alaska and Texas and relatives in Norway.

She will be remembered as someone you wanted to be with in good times and bad because of her incredibly beautiful spirit, always cheerful, happy and fun, beautiful smile, being a great sister, great person and great friend … a ray of sunshine.

A celebration of life, in Seaside, will be announced at a later date.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Clatsop County Animal Shelter or Angels for Sara Sanctuary, in care of Hughes-Ransom Mortuary, 220 N. Holladay Drive, Seaside, OR., 97138.