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Separating friends and family from celebrities, over the years I have felt some grief over the death of a few famous people, but never like I feel for the death of this man. In the couple of days since his death I made several attempts at expressing my feelings but never quite succeeded. Then the words came up today from Jimmy Buffett himself.
And that led to this:

What did Jimmy Buffett mean (to us)?

      I woke up around 6:30 a.m. September 2, 2023, and turned up the computer as I usually did to catch up on what happened while I was asleep. The first thing I saw was a message from a friend telling me Jimmy Buffet had died the day before. You could have slapped me in the face and I would not have been any more shocked. Eyes watered immediately and I leaned back absorbing. Then as the day progressed and more and more announcements and stories about him filled my screen. I attempted posting a couple of things and sharing a few more but none of them really said what I was feeling

Toward evening and still reflecting and letting even more tributes come up, one incident leaped out of the past and spoke to me.

     It happened like this, our usual bunch had gathered in our favorite bar, a place I called Key Largo as I had recently gone through another breakup with another woman I had loved and that song of the time had resonated. A wall of windows overlooked the harbor in Valdez, Alaska. In daylight we could see to the end of the bay where the Chugach Mountains rose to their white caps. Sometimes a sunset behind us would color them pink or purple. One time when they turned deep purple we made everyone in the bar stand up and sing that patriotic song with "purple mountains' majesty" in it. Commercial salmon fishermen sat next to some of us tour boar captains and charter fishermen along with several crew members, girlfriends and other hangers on, even a couple of ocean sailors, with a few tourists scattered at tables a cautious distance from us locals.

     The usual din of conversations, shouts from game players, laughter, cursing to be sure, stories being told, just the general noise that fills any bar along with the occasional interlude for some favorite song coming out of the jukebox. In short it was a normal night at Key Largo.

     Then the first notes came out of that box, familiar guitar chords and then a harmonica lament. By the time the first words emerged several of us were already singing, "Mother, mother ocean, I have heard your call, wanted to sail upon your waters since I was three feet tall…." By the end of that first phrase most other noise had ceased and the place had fallen almost into silence, almost or maybe in reverence as more people joined the song. We sang every word of that song to the ending verse:

"Mother, mother ocean, after all the years I've found
My occupational hazard being my occupation's just not around
I feel like I've drowned, gonna head uptown
I feel like I've drowned, gonna head uptown."

     As the last notes faded, so did our singing, into a funereal silence throughout the room as each of us relaxed into what might be described as a state of euphoria while we searched our own minds for meaning. That musician had been there, in one way or another done what we've done, and held the experience in high regard and was able to express our emotions about it for us, an unseen crew mate. We could feel the meaning but for my part anyway could not find the words to articulate it. Maybe it was the kinship all of us felt for each other, the singer and the ocean. The silence lasted for what seemed several minutes but was probably a few seconds. I recall catching the eye of a fisherman, recognizing each other as brothers despite our differences, as I whispered to my friend, "That was special," and then fell back into my reverie.

     Soon the buzz of conversation rose and the room filled with the usual sounds and the moment passed. Passed for the time being, yes, but not gone as is evidenced here and to tell the truth every other time I hear that song.


 
 Sue Whittom (2022)
In October 1986 I moved out to some land I had purchased 12 miles east of Talkeetna, Alaska, intending to build a cabin where I planned to spend as much of the rest of my life as I could. I was going to  live in a tent while I built, but in retrospect I doubt I would have completed the job if it had not been for Sue Whittom and the crew who owned the cabin directly across the main trail from where mine was going to be.
The first week went all right and I met most of my neighbors that first weekend. One of them was set up to haul in my building package over the bumpy, hilly trail. A rainstorm with a once-a-decade flooding put an end to that for a while and we visited quite a bit. The upshot if it was, they invited me to live in their cabin while I built mine and there began a friendship of almost 40 years. Not only did they offer shelter but now and then they would come up and help me build. I particularly remember the day and a half it took me and a crew to put up all four walls, something that alone might have taken me three weeks. Later Sue’s son Jeff helped me put on the roofing. It was kind of funny. Neither one of us particularly liked working up there and in the mornings we would do this little dance, each of us milling around finding things on the ground to do hoping the other would go up on the roof first.

Little had I expected ahead of time, part of my staying at their cabin was taking care of Sue’s small sled dog team.

When the my cabin was enclosed and habitable Sue was the first person to come over for dinner. I remember one night going to their place for dinner and taking one of those Jello no-bake pies rough-tough me feeling silly with my rifle over my shoulder and carrying a Coleman lantern being ever so careful trekking through the wilderness juggling my pie.

Over the years we watched our families grow and spent many pleasant times in those woods. I remember Johnny not even walking yet, left for a moment packed into a bulky snowsuit sitting on his mother’s snowmachine and as we watched, he keeled over backward.

There were long periods when one or the other of us didn’t make it out there, but we always stayed in touch and knew what each other was doing. My life changed and I didn’t get out there often through much of the 90s and in that time Sue’s life changed too and in time she landed in Idaho. But we did have a New Year’s Eve late in the 90’s. I had brought a woman friend out for the holiday and Sue came over for dinner. We had a drink or two and Sue, I later realized, recognized the situation, and demanded to go home despite me insisting she stay.  I came back in 2012 and began spending winters out there for the next 9 years. 

With the internet available then, we stayed in touch and I always made sure to go over and check out their cabin at least once a winter and let her know how it was doing.

In one of my last winters out there Sue came through and managed a rescue of me via that internet. I had gotten my snowmachine impossibly stuck trying to getup my hill. Sue let me know her new (now) son in law Keith and grandson James were staying at the cabin and relayed between us until they came over and got me out. Neighbors to the very end no matter where we lived.

One of our last interchanges was kind of funny. I took a lot of pictures of Denali from my cabin. Every one of them had a tall spruce tree in it, identifiable by a formation of branches at the top that resembled a seahorse’s head. One day a couple of years ago I noticed that tree wasn’t there anymore. A few days later I went over to her cabin to check on it and found the tree. It had fallen across the roof of their cabin. I immediately let her know. She kidded she was surprised I hadn’t cut it up for firewood.  I told her if I had known I might have cut the tree down but I would have left the firewood for her.

About that tree

The internet rescue

Lael Morgan :Anchorage Daily News article  (2022)

Nancy Lethcoe (2022)  

Jimmy Buffett
David Crosby
Jeff Beck
Mike Gravel
Gail Somerville
Leon Russell
Dan Gustafson
I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

Ed "Crazy Horse" Gurtler" with Leslie Mead at Ed's Innoko River Lodge 1978
Photo by Raine Hall Rawlins in the book "Iditarod, The First Ten years."
     Edward Gurtler Sr. was born on the North Fork of the Innoko River in 1933. He died in his home in Wasilla April 3, 2019. He spent his early years hunting, fishing and trapping helping his parents support the family. After graduating high school in Holy Cross Ed joined the Army in the early 1950s and attained the rank of sergeant. After military service he went to work as a heavy equipment mechanic and operator and helped to build much of the state's infrastructure including the distant early warning system (DEW line) and the Trans Alaska pipeline. Ed owned and operated a hunting lodge on the Innoko River for many years. An avid bush pilot he flew thousands of miles across the state in his Cessna 170. He also was an accomplished musician and singer, pilot, mechanic and big game guide. Ed "Crazy Horse" Gurtler's memorial service is planned for 3 p.m. Sunday, July 14 at VFW Post 9356, 301 W. Lake View Ave., Wasilla, Alaska

     I knew this man for only about two weeks in 1979 but our time together was so intense it left me with memories lasting forty years.
     I had set out to write a book about the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog race but that effort stalled when the people I was working for refused to fund a trip along the trail during the race. By pure chance I met a man who offered to fund the whole project even hire an airplane and pilot.
     He gave me a check on the spot but then kind of disappeared and as race time approached I had heard nothing and began to worry. Somehow just days before the race he let me know he had hired a pilot but the man couldn't do it until two days after the start. So, if you will, on a wing and a prayer, I set out to cover the first couple of days somehow. I bothered the race people until they got me on a flight with Larry Thompson who at that time was the main Iditarod supply pilot. This is how I was introduced to Iditarod flying. Standing on the tarmac I watched him land at Anchorage's airport. Larry stepped down from the airplane and opened the cargo hatch. He reached in and pulled out a chain and 12 dogs piled out. They'd been dropped at early checkpoints. I asked him what he did if they started fighting in the airplane and matter-of-fact said, "I just turn the airplane upside down, settles 'em right down." 
     We skipped checkpoint by checkpoint up the trail and over Rainy Pass and he dropped me on the far side of the Alaska Range at the Farewell checkpoint where I was supposed to meet my pilot. I told the folks there that's what I was doing and someone asked who the pilot was and I said Ed Gurtler. Someone in that room, and I couldn't tell you who, said "oh you're flying with Crazy Horse?"
    An airplane flying upside down with fighting dogs bouncing around the cabin and now a pilot named Crazy Horse. For a moment I wondered what I had gotten myself into.
     He didn't make it that day so I spent it watching and talking with mushers resting at the checkpoint, slept uncomfortably on a floor and woke the next day to a clear blue sky a condition folks in McGrath later told me they called "severe clear," and shortly, the engine of a small airplane approaching. Ed Gurtler climbed down and we shook hands and as quickly as that we were both back in the airplane and climbing into that sky. We headed out across the Farewell Burn, a huge area that a wildfire a couple of years before had left nothing standing. In short time we came upon a dog team moving across the burn. 
    The pilot asked me if wanted to take a picture and I said, "sure." Immediately the airplane turned into a screaming dive plummeting earthward while I watched in my viewfinder until I couldn't take any more, snapped the shutter, dropped the camera and grabbed this little bar of steel in the overhead. The pilot whose Crazy Horse moniker had become more literal pulled up and when he leveled off he gave me a sideways glance and asked, "Want another one?"
   Probably shaking, I assured him that was enough and we flew on. When I finally released my handhold I realized probably I had just been tested and found myself hoping I'd passed. As we flew along over Alaska, I realized something else too. I had always been a nervous flyer but now inwardly had to laugh at myself for in my fear grabbing onto the very thing that was trying to kill me was a useless action. From then on for the rest of my life, I never feared flying with my new-found fatalistic view.
    We stopped for a bit in Nikolai and spent the better part of two days in McGrath.
    From there we flew to Ophir and stopped for a few hours, but with the leaders approaching the midway point at Iditarod we quickly headed off to the northwest. When we reached the old town, we circled a couple of times but then decided to fly on toward the Yukon River. Instead we flew into our next adventure. Very quickly after we left Iditarod the weather began to deteriorate and it wasn't long before we found ourselves in serious whiteout conditions. Over the course of our flights so far I told him I was a boat captain and right there he asked me about my navigation skills. Apparently convinced, he handed me a chart, pointed to where he thought we were and asked me to watch below and try to follow our progress on the chart and also point out any high points in the terrain. With that settled he brought the airplane down to treetop level and began to follow the curves of a frozen stream below us. I remembered a flash of something I had learned in Boy Scouts, "when lost follow water downstream." I figured that's what Crazy Horse was doing, following a stream that looked from the chart like it ran into the Iditarod River near the abandoned town. But, as we progressed I got the feeling he was also looking for a place to land.
      In time I pointed out a higher hill to our right and how the stream curved around the base. He smiled. He followed the stream around the hill and there it was nestled against the bank, the old gold rush town of Iditarod. Before we landed he asked if I wanted a photo from the air and I said it would be difficult in the flat light. He picked up on that term, I would learn later. Once again safely on the ground I took a few tentative steps and then went to work. Ed found a couple of friends in an occupied building and spent the day there.
    In the morning I received an education in Bush flying. Think about starting your own car on a cold morning. Maybe you had a plug-in engine heater or if worse comes to worse a way to jump start it. Now picture the same situation with an airplane on a slough of the Iditarod River in one of the least inhabited areas of Alaska with the temperature around zero. The first indication I had that this was a problem was when another pilot brought the oil he had drained from his engine indoors and put it on the wood stove to warm. Then I watched Crazy Horse prepare his airplane to fly. To warm the cabin and free any ice from the control cables inside he had installed what amounted to a duct system with hosing used in clothes dryer vents. At one end he placed what amounted to a small one-burner camp stove and let the heat from it circulate to where it needed to go through the ducting. Given an adequate amount of time he climbed in and worked the cables to make sure they operated correctly and then hustled me into the airplane so we could take off before they had a chance to freeze again. Once running, engine heat kept them functionally warm.
    Back in the air on another severe clear day we headed for the Yukon River. We flew over Shageluk and then Anvik where I wanted to stop, but Crazy Horse wanted to go on to Grayling where his friend Ernie Chase had invited us for dinner. Having been living on corn nuts and jerky for the better part of four days, now, the idea of moose stew sounded great so we went to Grayling. By the time we arrived the day had reached a gray twilight. A couple of airplanes stood parked on the river and Ed checked the wind and looked over the surface for adequate landing room. He finally settled down on what appeared perfectly smooth snow-covered river ice, but the minute we touched down we bounced right back up into the air. We came down hard the second time, a little softer on the third until the pilot finally brought the little airplane under control. Once stopped Crazy Horse gave me a sideways glance and said, "flat light, bouncy landing."
   
The result
  After a dinner of moose stew with Ernie Chase and his family we slept the night and headed upriver in the morning. We pressed on, stopped at Kaltag, then Unalakleet, then Shaktoolik and on to the Seward Peninsula where the weather took one last lick at us as we flew from Elim to Nome. As wind poured off the peninsula from the north it came smoothly off the flatter valley floors but off the bluffs it came blasting creating a turbulence that threw the 170 all over the sky. Crazy Horse fought the stick for at least an hour until we rounded Cape Nome and headed for town. Once we returned to earth, we piled out of the airplane and stood there shaking hands on the runway, knowing we had shared an adventure. 

     At that point I realized Crazy Horse had grown from simply the pilot ferrying the writer around into becoming a major element in the greater narrative. He belonged in the story, too. 
     We went our separate ways for a while, but the next day we met in the office of the Nome Nugget where I was staying. I confirmed with Ed that he had a place to stay and he told me he had to get back and how long did I intend to stay. I told him I needed to stay until the banquet but I could fly back commercial, so we said our goodbyes and my thank-yous there on Front Street in Nome and that was the last time I ever saw Crazy Horse.
    But those two weeks on the trail have lived vividly in memory for forty years. I still get a smile when I hear or use the term "flat light." And every time I ride in an airplane I recall that plunge at a musher on the Burn, smile and fly confidently. So, now, Crazy Horse is gone and though it sounds a little schmaltzy, all I can think of to say is fly high my friend and may you only encounter severe clear sky.

Another one reaches the end of the trail



March 27, 2018 
     Is there anything more classically Alaskan than a guy entering a sled dog race in order to win enough money to buy some yellow machinery for his gold claim?  
     That almost sounds like the beginning to a bad movie, but there is a man who really did that. Perhaps like most people we only remember his name and maybe one of those pictures of him in his parka, the hood thrown back and a big smile on his face. And it seemed for Dick Wilmarth that was the way he preferred it. He took his chances out on the edge, what one Alaska sourdough called a perimeter man, someone who lives in the fringe of society choosing to avoid the fuss and fury of the center, preferring instead a small gold camp or the wilds of rivers, mountains and tundra where he turned enough of a living to keep going, underwent difficulties that would have discouraged if not killed mortal men and he did it with an outward nonchalance and a smile.
He lived so far out on the the edge that if it hadn't been for the Iditarod most of us would never have heard the name Dick Wilmarth.
     Then again, if we hadn't heard of Dick Wilmarth, we might never have heard of the Iditarod.
The way the story goes, during that first race, a group of the leaders gathered in a tent on the Yukon River somewhere. The location changes with the telling. But most agree the leaders were talking about quitting. They did say, however, it had to be unanimous. That was about the time Dick stuck his head into the tent and asked what was going on. Someone explained it to him. His only response was, "Well, I'm going to Nome," and off he went, dragging the rest of them behind him to finish the race, proving it was possible and leaving them to get ready for next year.
     Some of the people in that tent went on to run the race several more times. There was at least one future winner involved. But Dick never raced again.
He had won the money to buy his yellow machinery and for him that was what it was about. How many bush people do you know? Have you ever noticed if you ask them what they do for fun you get a blank stare? That's because in the Bush you always have to be on your toes, always aware and there is always something that needs doing. What others see as drudgery, the perimeter people find satisfying, even pleasurable, but it's never about having fun. Not too long ago I was talking with one of the winners from the old days. He was complaining that some guy in the Iditarod had scratched saying it just wasn't fun.  This guy said it was never fun, it was diffiult. But, pleasureable, nonetheless? I asked. He smiled.
And that was my guess about how Dick Wilmarth viewed the Iditarod, a means to an end. Other people wanted to race. He wanted a bulldozer. That fit into his life better than an annual dog race.
So after the race he went back to his perimeter and the life he had chosen and lived for the next 45 years, much like the life of someone like him might have lived a hundred years earlier, only without television. We are left to imagine the hardships, the joys, the satisfaction and yes, maybe even the fun that life gave him.
     Sadly he may have been one of the last true Alaska perimeter men and whether we knew him personally or not, it's like the mountains around us that most of us will never climb but we are glad they're there. So too do we like the idea it's still possible to live on the Alaska perimeter as evidenced by people like Dick Wilmarth. But last week we lost one of those mountains and he has left a hole in our lives if we are willing to admit it.
It wasn't just in the Iditarod that he led the way.
- Tim Jones
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Mary Kvamme What a good read. Becka your dad was pretty awesome 😊😊
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Debby Hartman Thank you Tim, Wilmarrh was one of a kind.
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Renee Wilmarth Thank you for this
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Rebecca Wilmarth Thank you Tim
3


Debbie Keene Beautiful!
1

Matt Wacker touche'...excellent tribute.
2

Becky Bauer Beautiful tribute, remarkable man.
1

Maribel Bobby Beautifully written.
1

Renee Wilmarth Thank you for this


Rebecca Wilmarth Thank you Tim


Debbie Keene Beautiful!
1

Matt Wacker touche'...excellent tribute.
2

Becky Bauer Beautiful tribute, remarkable man.


Maribel Bobby Beautifully written.
1

 


Another man done gone

     A friend of mine died last week. He was the fourth person close to me who has died of cancer in
the past few years. These aren't casual acquaintences or just someone on facebook. These are people who have had profound effects on my life and I miss each one very much.
     I met Del Allison at a party in Anchorage during Fur Rendezvous in 1979. Another friend hosted this party yearly when Gareth Wright and his family came to Anchorage from Fairbanks for the dog races. He had won the race three times and now His daughter Roxy ran the family dogs.
     I had sat on a couch next to Gareth and he asked me how things were going. I told him I was attempting to write a book about the Iditarod but the company I worked for had backed out of providing me with any support and after a year of research it had come to a halt because I couldn't afford to fly along wth the race.
     A man I hadn't been introduced to leaned around from the other side of Gareth and asked, "You want to write a book about the Iditarod?"
     I said, "Yes."
     "How much do you need?"
     The rest is history. In the next two weeks before the race Del Allison gave me a check for enough money to support me along the trail and hired a pilot and airplane.
     Without that help there might never have been a "Last Great Race." It is as simple that.
     Del ran the race that year and then he and some friends continued on with their dog teams to Barrow, another 500 miles or so to the north
     The following winter when a place I had lined up to live while I wrote the book fell through, he found a 10x14 cabin on the banks of the Susitna River and loaned me five dogs and a sled to get back and forth. It was the perfect set up to write such an Alaska book.
    Two years later when the book was published I was able to hand him the first one off the press to thank him for all he had done.
     We remained friends through the next few years, had a couple of adventures, enjoyed some memorable New Years' Eves.
      I had always admired an art print he had hanging in his house: Melissa and McGonigal, a collection of ink drawings illustrating how a nude ballerina taught a moose to dance, by Alaska artist Bill Berry. When he left Alaska he gave me that print in its barnwood frame and I still have it hanging in my living room. Now it will be a memorial.
     This is what I am talking about when I say people who have had a profound effect on my life. Were it not for that chance meeting with Gareth Wright, I might never have been able to write that book. Think about that, it's a book the Associated Press class has called an Alaska classic.  And, Del Allison made it happen.
     I can never forget how my first book happened nor can I ever forget the man who gave this writer the lift it took to get it done.
     Each time this happens Eugene O' Neill's quote becomes more firmly cemented into my mind
 

  1. Fair winds, my friend


    September 24, 2013
    Last Saturday, a man who loomed large in my life died.  Since that time I have been struggling for the right words and they haven't come easily.  Today a friend asked me to read an editorial he wrote for the Anchorage Daily News and that opened the gate, I guess.  I wrote a message for the memorial page for Stan Stephens and am repeating it here.  There isn't enough room to go through 25 years of memories.  When I write on here about my time on the boats, most of that time was spent on Stan Stephens boats.  Here is what I wrote to his family:


    It has taken me a while to absorb this news and I have been struggling for the right words to say.  Today a friend asked me to read an editorial about Stan Stephens planned for publication in the Anchorage Daily News and it gave me the push I needed, I guess.
    First of all, to you Mary Helen, Carrie, Jenna and Colleen, one of the things I admired most about your husband and father was his devotion to his family and the love that held you all together.  I hope it is comforting to you now.
    Something else I admired him for was the influence he had on generations of young people in Valdez. All of the kids who washed boats, shuffled supplies, served Russian tea to tourists and performed the myriad of chores it takes to run the business came away influenced positively by a role model of a type that's difficult to find anymore.  Two generations of my family worked on those boats. We all owe him a debt for that and we should carry that influence forward.
    Stan stood large in many people's lives, including my own for the better part of 25 years and he was a strong influence.  We didn't always agree but we always respected each other and I held the highest esteem for him.  We fought many battles together, saving Prince William Sound's killer whales from capture, dealing with an oil spill in our most beautiful place and later doing what we could to protect it from another such tragedy. Stan saw that the biggest danger was complacency and continued the fight long after it was popular.
    Since hearing the news,  I have been living with a great sense of loss and a mind full of  memories of this and that from our relationship over the years, some of it uncomfortable, but mostly happy. I spent some the happiest years of my life on Stan Stephens' boats and in friendship with the man.
    And as you will read in the Daily News shortly, he set a standard and a stage for the rest of us to continue on with the legacy he leaves us to also be keepers, of Prince William Sound, on a larger scale the world's oceans and, too, the love that holds families together. 
    I share your loss.

    1 comment:

    1. I wanted to thank you for your articulate and kind comments. They are very much appreciated! Carrie (Stephens) Nash
      Reply

  2. A most remarkable woman

    August 6, 2014
    And when I die and when I'm gone, there'll be one child born in a world to carry on, to carry on
    – Laura Nyro

    Sally J. Suddock (1946 - 2014)

    Sally J. Suddock, 68, died Saturday, Aug. 2, 2014, at her home in Anchorage after a long illness surrounded by her family.
         She was born March 27, 1946, in Chicago. After graduating from the University of Illinois she worked as a reporter at the Chicago Tribune in the late 1960s and early '70s. At the Tribune she was a member of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for uncovering flagrant violations of voting procedures in the March 21, 1972, primary election. In 1973 she moved to Alaska where she had lived ever since.
         Sally worked as a reporter at the Anchorage Daily News from 1973 until 1980 and in 1977 with her colleague Rosemary Shinohara won the prestigious Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished business and financial journalism for a series of articles the two wrote about construction problems with the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
         After 1980 she worked at the Alaska Journal of Commerce, hosted the Alaska Business segment on KENI News Radio and served as executive director of the Alaska High Tech Business Council. She also was publisher and managing editor of the Alaska Bar Association's newsletter "The Alaska Bar Rag" until her death.
         After 2000 she began developing as a bead, metal and fiber artist, serving at one time as president of the Alaska Bead Society. She and her daughter Ariel sold their works at various shows and markets around Southcentral Alaska.
         Sally and her husband Warren were married July 27, 1979.
         She is survived by her husband Warren, daughter Ariel and husband David Phifer all of Anchorage; brother-in-law George and wife Linda and family of Anchorage and Seattle; brother-in-law John Suddock of Anchorage and family; a brother Robert Wagner and wife Anita of Syracuse, NY; sister-in-law Anka Wagner and Eric Neal of Philadelphia, PA; a nephew, James Wagner and wife Marika of Brooklyn, NY; the Dickows of Illinois and Wisconsin; David and Vivian Watts of Washington, D.C.; Ariel's father Tim Jones of Palmer; and dear friends throughout the world. 
         At Sally's request no service has been planned. She asked that in lieu of other memorials, donations be made to the Bird Treatment and Learning Center in Anchorage (Bird TLC).
         Her first grandchild, William Phifer was born October 8, 2014.
    We won't be seeing her this Christmas
    There is a guest book here at Legacy.com

    An afterthought: 12/4/20: For the past five years I have tried to fill Sally's shoes as editor of the Alaska Bar Association's Bar Rag newspaper. The association's Executive Director whom Sally worked with for years is retiring. What follows is a note I wrote to her about our time together with the Bar Rag;
    Deborah,
    As we lined up people to write about you for that special edition, I kept wondering if I should add something. I never could come up with the right time or place. Then in an email or two ago you mentioned the connection with Sally and it has crossed my mind often since then. By the time I came to the Bar Rag, Sally and I had been divorced for several years and she had remarried. Over those years we had remained in touch and cordial with each other. It was difficult sitting in that hospital room with her. At one point her brother chased everyone else out of the room, on  purpose, leaving me time alone to talk with her for a while. I sat there listening to her holding her hand, not knowing what to say. She was concerned with what effect she had had on the world and I pointed out to her her two Pulitzer Prize efforts and even more so the stories that she did on the faulty welds in the pipeline. I told her from my own work with the safety of oil transportation she had more than likely prevented a failure in the pipeline. I also reminded her we had a pretty wonderful daughter. One other thing that concerned her was the future of the Bar Rag. She was worried about it. To quiet her and perhaps ease her mind I promised I would do what I could to make sure it went on, not being absolutely sure how I would do that. It was that promise that brought me into your office. But honestly, it went on. Every time I sit down to work on it,  I feel Sally is there somehow, in the background, just a sense of her existence. And that has kept me connected with her all these years. One thing the world doesn’t prepare us for as we grow older is the death of people around us. I once spoke about this at a friend’s funeral, and pointed out that those who leave us, have ways of showing up, coming to mind at the oddest times. And in one way or another those thoughts are comforting, knowing we spent time on this rock with those people. Working on the Bar Rag has helped me keep that connection with Sally. And for that, I thank you very much.
    Tim
    Comments from facebook


                ‪Kitty Delorey Fleischman So sorry to hear it, Tim. A mother is a huge loss.
August 2 at 8:14pm · · 1




                
                ‪Sue Whittom I'm so sorry to hear this. Sad for all of Sally' s extended family. Tell Ariel I'm so sorry.
August 2 at 8:16pm · · 1




                
                ‪Rebecca Brashear I'm so sorry, Tim. Feelings and Emotions.
August 2 at 9:12pm ·  · 1




                
                ‪Gail Somerville This is such sad news, and I am vey sorry to hear it. Please extend my deepest sympathy to Ariel. Sally was a very special person and the world feels a little emptier tonight. Hugs and condolences also to you, Tim.
August 2 at 11:30pm ·  1




                
                 
‪Jeanne Passin Sorry to hear that.condolences to you and Ariel.
August 3 at 2:40am · 1




                
                ‪Mary Doyle So sorry for you and Ariel. You both are in my thoughts
August 3 at 2:58am ·  · 1




                
                ‪Sue Whittom Last month, I lost three long-time friends in Alaska. It breaks my heart and the world is indeed not the same without them. I feel your sadness and it is so very hard to lose a mother - Ariel and her baby will miss Sally' s experience as a mother.
August 3 at 6:52am ·  1




                
                
 
‪Pamela Randles I am sorry to hear Sally has passed. I haven't seen her for years, but cherish her memory. Condolences to you and Ariel.
August 3 at 8:13am· · 1




                
                
 
‪Aaron Koscielniak I wish you guys the best. My prayers are with you all.
August 3 at 9:34am· 1




                
                ‪Margaret Kandel Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
August 3 at 5:28pm  · 1




                
                ‪Tom Walker Sad to hear, Tim.
August 4 at 7:00pm · 1





                ‪Del Allison Tim; thanks for sharing, may the journey be perpetual...
August 6 at 12:57pm · Like




                
                
‪Rebecca Brashear Beautifully written, Tim.
August 6 at 1:10pm · Like · 1




                
                
‪Rosemary Bassett She sounds like a very Special lady...Condolences to all the family..
August 6 at 1:59pm · Like




                
                
‪Sue Whittom Truly, so beautifully written.......a remarkable woman.
August 6 at 2:04pm · Like




                
                
‪Mary Doyle Beautiful Thanks for sharing
August 6 at 2:42pm · Like




                
                
‪Karen Lachance Tim, I'm sorry to hear this. My condolences to both you and Ariel. It makes me sad that you have had to write two obituaries this year for two people so important in your life.
August 6 at 4:24pm ·  1




                
                
‪Gail Somerville Beautifully written, Tim.
August 6 at 4:52pm · Like




                
                
‪Cb Elkington Lovely, quite the person.
August 6 at 5:14pm · Like




                
                
‪Carrie Ann Nash Sorry to you and to Ariel for your loss! Thank you for writing such a beautiful obituary so we could know more about a remarkable woman.
August 6 at 7:05pm · Like

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