Candice Christine (Kandra) Hayes

Published 4:19 pm Thursday, January 15, 2015

Candice Christine (Kandra) Hayes peacefully joined her mom and dad, Jerri and Carol Kandra in heaven on Dec. 30, 2014 in Portland, OR

Candice was born in Medford, OR on Sept. 23, 1947. She had countless fond memories growing up on ranches in Alturas, CA and Merrill, OR with her parents, and many aunts, uncles and cousins, and her little brother, Curtis Kandra.

Candice graduated from Merrill High School in 1965 and attended both Oregon Institute of Technology and Oregon State University. She was briefly married and had her precious daughter, Kimberly Kandra (Hayes) Myers, in 1967.

She began her banking career with First National Bank in Merrill. Her career took her to Philomath, Bend, Prineville, Redmond, Salem, Klamath Falls, Portland, Cottage Grove, Eugene and Junction City. One of her many accomplishments was the ability to go to a “problem” branch, quickly determine the issues and successfully resolve them. After 34 years, she retired as branch manager and assistant vice president with Wells Fargo due to her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and congestive heart failure.

While her career was successful and she made long-lasting friendships with her co-workers, she was also a generous philanthropist. Candice often visited nursing homes, taking cookies and spending her time visiting the residents. She was a Big Sister and spent many weekends taking little girls shopping, to the movies and teaching them to read. She was often a secret Santa delivering food and gifts to families that were less fortunate. Giving back to her community was an important lesson she passed down to her family.

Though her accomplishments were important to her, she would much rather be remembered as a mother and grandmother. She was known as “grandma Book” due to her love of reading and gifting books to her friends and family. She was an intelligent, fun and loving woman who was always up for an adventure as long as it involved her family. Many happy times were spent camping, fishing, rafting, playing cards and board and video games, watching movies, having parties, attending concerts, dancing in the kitchen, going to Disneyland, and most especially, spoiling her well-loved grandsons, Christopher Scott Conner Myers and Nathan Taylor Myers.

Candice was the heart of her family and will be deeply missed by her daughter, son-in-law, and grandsons – Kimberly, Steven, Christopher and Nathan Myers of Battleground, WA; brother, sister-in-law and nieces – Curtis, Trina, Ellie and Delaney Kandra of Portland, OR; aunt Marcia Conner of Burlington, WA; aunt Joanne “Aunt Chuckie” Snapp of Grass Valley, CA; cousins from the Kandra, Conner, Lemieux and Bittle families; and life-long friends, Sandy and Roger McJunkin of Bend, OR; and the St. Clair Family of Philomath, OR.

A funeral service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 9, in O’Hair Funeral Chapel. She will be laid to rest at Merrill I/.O.O.F. Cemetery.

Please sign the online guestbook at www.heraldandnews.com/obituaries