Julia S. Putnam, LICSW, died unexpectedly yet peacefully on October 23, 2026. She was 74 years old. Throughout her life Julia was an outspoken feminist and advocate of civil rights and human decency for all. She loved music, from attending opera at the Met in New York to singing folk songs with friends and family in a ranch workshop built for large tractors. She practically inhaled murder mystery novels and was only bested in spotting whodunit on Murder She Wrote once, and that was with a secret accomplice in Florida who'd watched the episode three hours earlier. While appreciative of aesthetics, she prized practicality, and was happy to let her young grandchildren play with her large fit-over sunglasses and vests with an absurd multitude of pockets. To her family and friends, she was a rock of strength, a pillar of stability, and an everlasting font of love and wisdom. She became the first person so many turned to for guidance and support (and a laugh) through a combination of her character, her professional training, and growing up in a place that fostered a high degree of personal capability and a spirit of helping your neighbor and family.

Julia was born September 29, 1952 and raised near Inchelium, Washington on the Colville Reservation on a cattle ranch that was first connected to the electric grid around that same year. She was the youngest of three children and only daughter of Florence Lee Putnam formerly of NACA (now known as NASA) and her husband, WWII U.S. Army veteran Carl Van Putnam. Her father, after making a three-little-pigs-esque observation of what structures still stood in postwar Germany, decided to build his family a stone house, largely through his own labor. This ambitious endeavor took most of Julia's and her brothers' childhoods, which, consequently, they spent most of living in an unfinished basement. Naturally she grew up with and loved animals, managing to convince skeptics that cows are, in fact, cute ("those big eyes"). Her schoolmates and friends were mostly Native American and, being from a non-native family, she grew up with a deep understanding of cross-cultural relations, as well as a commitment to public service, demonstrated early by her time as a page in the Washington State legislature in high school.

In college at Washington State University, she formed an enduring group of friends who, with the addition of their spouses (and eventually children and grandchildren), remained close throughout her life. After graduating in 1974 she spent two years working with several of them in a group home for teenage girls run by the Children's Home Society in Spokane. Julia went on to achieve her Master's degree in social work at Virginia Commonwealth University in 1977. She then returned to Washington and led programs and training for the Seattle Indian Health Board and Ethnic Minority Mental Health Consortium.

While working at the Seattle Indian Health Board, Julia hired Robert ("Bob") L. Bergman, MD of the Indian Health Service to come give a talk. They stayed in contact, beginning a relationship in 1980, and married in 1983. The wedding was held at the ranch where she grew up, inspiring a subsequent gathering there of family, friends, and community known as the Putnam Ranch Roundup that was held annually for over three decades.

Julia transitioned to working as a psychotherapist, treating individuals, couples, and families, both at the Seattle University student mental health clinic until 2004 and in her private practice, which was busy and successful through her retirement in 2023. She also served as a lecturer and instructor in social work and psychotherapy at local institutions including Harborview Community Mental Health Center and the University of Washington.

Julia and Bob have one child, Joel, born in 1986 and the family, which has always been very close-knit, includes Julia's stepchildren Eric and Helen. Their extended family, including seven grandchildren, has been harmonious, warm, and close, largely because of her care, leadership, and sensitivity. It is a testament to those qualities that this harmony even includes her husband's ex-wife, Edna, who, when once asked at a church function how she and Julia knew each other, chuckled and described Julia and herself as "sister-wives." Julia and Bob were utterly devoted to one another throughout their forty-three years of marriage, and she recently cared for him through his diagnosis and ultimately successful treatment of lymphoma.

Julia has been an active and widely beloved member of Epiphany Episcopal Parish since the 1970s. Her committed efforts to that church span a full resume in their own right, including her membership (twice) on the parish vestry and her service as Senior Warden during the search for a new priest. She has for decades been a constant participant in the musical life of the parish, especially with the choir with whom she toured and performed in the UK.

Julia is survived by her husband Bob Bergman, their children Eric Bergman (Julia Nephew), Helen Bergman Moure (Charles), and Joel Putnam (Kendra Levin), their grandchildren Eli Molitors Bergman, Cecilia Moure, Isobel Moure, Sage Nephew, Madeleine Nephew, Miranda Putnam-Levin, and Corey Putnam-Levin, and her brothers Jim Putnam (Nancy) and Fred Putnam (Tena), as well as their surviving children Crystal Putnam, Janel Kidd (Ian), and Carrie Putnam, her adored (if somewhat deranged) cats, Orville and Amelia, and countless others for whom she was a foundational source of wisdom, humor, comfort, and sanity. She was predeceased by her parents, Carl and Florence Putnam, and her beloved niece Lisa Russell. She was the best person in the world.

Funeral service will be at Epiphany Parish of Seattle on November 7 at 4:30 pm. In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation in Julia's memory to the Epiphany Music Guild or Planned Parenthood.