Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

Longtime resident Norman Blank died Sunday, June 12, at home from complications of pulmonary fibrosis. He was 80 and had been active up until the hereditary illness progressed last fall.

"He was just a great guy, honest, nice, capable, pretty clean living, fun to be around," moose hunting partner Norm Hughes said. "We all should be so lucky to have both kids still in town, five blocks and two blocks away, and die in your own home. What more could you wish for?"

In many ways Blank led the quintessential Haines life. His first jobs were working in the woods for the Schnabel Lumber Company and bartending at the Harbor Bar. Soon he was working for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, which hired him in 1961 as the area’s first wildlife protection officer, a post he held for four years and quit rather than transfer to Sitka. He worked as a carpenter and fished commercially on the F/V Aries from 1978-1995 with his daughters as deck hands.

"We weren’t highliners," Lisa Blank said. "We were average. We liked to sleep."

He also worked on the pipeline at Pump Station 10 as a security guard, on and off for Fish and Game, and with his wife, Patricia, ran a salmon smoking business, Alyeska Products, until 2000. He helped her maintain one of the loveliest and most productive gardens in town.

Mostly, friends say, Norman Blank loved his family and this place. Beth MacCready credits Blank, who was a friend of her father’s, for her Haines connection.

"He invited me up and I thought I’d stay a year and it’s been 38," she said. "He became my inspiration because of his demeanor. He and his family had fun, they were always laughing. The children were included in everything, berry picking, ice fishing. Norm and Patricia took them to Battery Point for walks before there was a trail. He was devoted to his girls and grandchildren."

Blank was in the fire department, a school board member, bike race volunteer and hospice volunteer. He headed a crew for the Tlingit Park playground project, cleaned up creeks for the watershed council, built toys for needy children at Christmastime and maintained the library’s aluminum recycling bin. He was a board member of the Chilkoot Bear Foundation, and for many years held the conservation seat on the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve Advisory Council.

"When it came to protecting fisheries and fish habitat, Norm always spoke on behalf of the fish," friend Tim June said.

Patricia Blank said her husband never minded a few holes in his subsistence net. "He called it his conservation net."

The Blanks came to Haines thanks to a traffic jam. They were living in San Francisco shortly after they were married (he was a salesman for a paper company) when they got stuck in rush hour on the Bay Bridge.

"Norman turned to me and said, ‘Let’s go back to Alaska,’" Patricia said. (He had worked in Anchorage from 1953-55 and in 1956.)

They converted a van into a camper and drove the Alcan, arriving here in the spring of 1959. Blank loved Haines instantly.

It wasn’t the first time he fell in love at first sight. In 1955 he met Patricia at his brother’s ice cream parlor in Hawaii.

"He told Mom he was going to marry her the second day they worked together," daughter Anna Jurgeleit said.

In the notes Norman Blank left to assist in his own obituary, he wrote in bold capitals, "1955. Met the love of my life in Waikiki." He married Patricia Deagan in Long Grove, Illinois, on April 6, 1957.

Blank was born July 2, 1930 in Jackson, Michigan, the youngest of John and Mabel (Quackenbush) Blank’s five children. At Jackson High School he was a state champion wrestler and the quarterback of the football team.

He graduated in 1948, served in the Marines for a year and began college at Michigan State, but was called back to active duty in 1950 due to the Korean War. He fought overseas from January 1951 until April 1952. Afterward, he became an advocate for peaceful conflict resolution.

Before his pulmonary fibrosis progressed, he took a trip to Mexico, a favorite family vacation spot, and traveled back to Michigan to deer hunt with his nephews, a trip he especially enjoyed, the family said.

Neighbor Irwin Hertz said they were always on opposite sides of political issues, but remained the best of friends because of Blank’s winning ways. When they were first getting to know each other, Hertz found Blank’s hammer in his toolbox and returned it.

"Norm said he’d seen it there six weeks ago, but didn’t say so in case I’d stolen it or something. I said he should have said something, but he wasn’t that kind of person. It is a loss to lose a man like that. But I am thankful I was on the earth the same time he was."

Norman Blank is survived by Patricia Blank, Lisa Blank, Anna Jurgeleit and grandchildren Alec and Elizabeth Jurgeleit, all of Haines; siblings Margaret Hart of Pagosa Springs, Colorado, and Lyman Blank of Honolulu, and many nieces and nephews.

Donations in Norman Blank’s memory may be made to the Haines Borough Public Library or the Haines Volunteer Ambulance Service. A celebration of his life is being planned for later this summer.