Leslie Snapp, 91, Navy vet, avid tennis player, grandpa

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It’s been a year since Leslie Snapp suddenly passed away from Covid-19. He lived in Bellevue. But his favorite place was the longtime family home in Hansville, on the Kitsap Peninsula.

Snapp was a Navy veteran who served during the Korean War. He was an avid tennis player until age 90.

To his daughter in law, Lisa Vizinni, he was a steadfast support even after her divorce from Leslie’s oldest son Stephen. When Stephen died in 2009, Leslie stayed close as a grandparent.

Vizzini and her daughter recently shared memories about how Leslie’s kindness and encouragement over the years got them through rough times.

“He would say things like, ‘You’re really doing a good job,’” said Vizzini. “As a single parent, that’s even more critical to hear, because it’s tough and a lot of work and just like any kind of parenting, you don’t know if you’re doing a good job.”

Snapp was a private person. Still, the two corresponded over the last few years of his life. Vizzini said one of the letters she wrote was after he had started distributing his estate before he died.

“I told him that I was so incredibly happy for him, that he was able to do and to know that the amazing difference that he was making in your lives while he was alive,” she said.

For Lydia Snapp, Leslie Snapp's granddaughter, that meant paying off nursing school debt. “That was really amazing,” she said.

As a nurse, she said she has a sense of what people are experiencing or what they’re projecting, thanks partly to her grandfather.

“I always felt this deep sense of grace from him," she said. "He acted in this way that was so generous. He would never brag about, never talk about himself. And it was such a huge example for me throughout my life that you just do good things and maybe nobody ever notices it, and that’s what it should be.”