Read The Official Obituary and Post Messages to her and her Family at Legacy.com
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in her honor to the Women’s Shelter of Clark County as they serve women leaving domestic abusive relationships.
Diana Jo James (Oxley) was born to Marian Opal Huddleston and Bill (Willis) Oxley on August 14th 1951 at Memorial hospital in Vancouver, Washington. She was their first born child to survive, which laid a foundation of strength for the life ahead of her. She would later have a total of two full siblings and five half-siblings, all of whom with the exception of one, she was tasked with raising while her parents worked full time, which was uncommon during that era. She graduated from Evergreen High School in 1970. She married and delivered three children of her own, Megan, Melissa (stillborn) and Matthew.
Diana held many careers over the course of her life. She started at Taco Bell as a teenager and insisted that today’s Taco Bell made the tacos wrong and would always politely ask them to put the cheese before the lettuce so it melted every time she ordered. She worked as a housekeeper at timeshares around the country in her early adult life which required her young family to move every six months to a year. When she gave birth to her last child Matthew, she decided to move back home to Vancouver to be close to family and eventually divorced the children’s biological father after years of domestic, physical and emotional abuse. She took a housekeeping job at PeaceHealth Hospital when it was SW WA Medical Center but after carpel tunnel surgery she was forced to find a job with less physical demands. Inspired by her youngest twin sisters Debby and Shelly, Diana became a job coach to differently abled persons and found true passion in her work. She felt that she was able to make a difference in her community by helping companies and communities facilitate acceptance and embracing of differently abled people. She always viewed her twin sisters as amazing people deserving of that same acceptance, love and support. It was quite common in that era to institutionalize people with special abilities, but their Mom Marian never gave that even a first thought. Diana’s raising of her siblings gave her a unique and specialized skill set to be an advocate of special and gifted people with passion and joy. Diana later went on to meet Jim (James) McCann through a mutual friend and became engaged shortly after Thanksgiving in 1994 before Jim was tragically murdered at the hands of a jealous sociopath just days before Christmas that same year. Shortly after that time, she found herself being laid off from her job coaching position and needed a more stable career to singlehandedly support her two children as the sole provider. She went back to school and completely reinvented herself, learning computer skills that secured her a temporary position with the City of Vancouver in Accounts Payable from which she was later made a permanent employee. She also picked up many other side hustles including office cleaning which she used to teach her children the value of a strong and dedicated work ethic as they cleaned together as a family to make ends meet. She retired from the City of Vancouver after 16 years of service in 2016 after suffering a health setback.
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