Daily Sitka Sentinel

Victoria Taprine Moats

 

Victoria Taprine Moats

Services have been scheduled for Victoria Taprine Moats, who died Sept. 23, 2017, in Pahoa, Hawaii, at age 37.

The service will be 11 a.m. Nov. 4 at Puna Sure Foundation, 16-1592 Pohaku Circle, the corner of Pohaku and Pahoa Highway. A reception will follow at the home of her grandmother, Joyce Davis. Aloha attire will be welcome

Her ashes will be interred in Sitka.

Taprine was born Oct. 27, 1979, in Ketchikan, and graduated from Juneau High. While in Juneau, she and her mother, Melanie Moats, raised 35 foster children. While growing up, Taprine often spent summers in Sitka with her grandmother.

Taprine received a degree in nursing from Mid-America Nazarene University in Olathe, Kansas. She loved being a pediatric critical care nurse at Children’s Mercy in Kansas City, then at Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage.

She worked as a traveling nurse from Alaska to Hawaii when she settled in Pahoa with her son Skyler, in 2014.

Taprine loved to travel, and she shared her smile across the United States, Honduras, Guatemala, Tahiti and Scotland. She never met a stranger, and loved children, family, gardening and a good book. But the love of her life was her son, Skyler, age 4.

Taprine is survived by her son, Skyler Moats, and mother Melanie Moats (Mike) of Pahoa; her father, Michael Hurst (Sarah) of Phoenix; brother Casey Moats of Anchorage; sisters Brianna Hurst, of Phoenix and Jennifer Ruhl of Kansas; grandmother Joyce Davis of Pahoa; aunts Susan Hurst, Elida Horn and Kathleen Dapcevich; uncle David Hurst; and many foster siblings.

 

Condolences may be sent to Melanie Moats, Rural Route 3, Box 1357, Pahoa, HI 96778.