Salli

Salli ( Jensen) Rogers ’55 passed on Tuesday, January 14, 2025. She grew up in the Madrona neighborhood of Seattle with her older sister, Mari, and her younger sister, Heidi. She attended Madrona Elementary and the Helen Bush School, where she graduated in 1955. She went on to the University of Washington to study nursing and pledged the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority.

 

In her junior year, she met Dr. Vincent Codiga. They later married and had three daughters, Marianne, Susan, and Alison. When Salli was twenty-six, she was sadly widowed. In 1965 Salli met and married Reid Rogers, who adopted Salli’s daughters as his own.

 

They had two more children, John and Kathryn. Salli and Reid enjoyed traveling the world through YPO and entertaining guests.

Salli was a lifelong learner, volunteer, and advocate. She began as a candy striper at Seattle Children’s Hospital at age twelve and volunteered in her community through various organizations. Salli proudly taught at Lakeside Middle School as a reading tutor and life skills teacher for twenty-six years. During that time, she began practicing meditation, became a long-distance runner, earned her scuba-diving certification and black belt in aikido, studied poetry and Spanish, kayaked around Vancouver Island, and became a master women’s rower on Martha’s Moms crew team in Seattle for ten years. She was a loyal friend to many and never forgot a loved one’s birthday.

Salli’s greatest accomplishment was being “Amah” to her nine adoring grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. In 2005 she retired to Gig Harbor and became an active volunteer there. She volunteered at GH MultiCare as a greeter and oncology unit support person and at elementary and middle schools as a reading tutor in her daughter Kathryn’s classrooms. She became an active Labrador retriever rescuer and proudly rescued four dogs—Jensie, Lolly, Stella, and Oliver—and befriended every neighborhood dog in Arletta and Fox Island, where she lived until 2020. She was a steadfast Democrat and human rights activist and enjoyed advocating for others. She was proud to meet Gloria Steinem in the 1970s.