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

  A cross-section of Haines, Klukwan and Skagway residents filled the ANB Hall for Art Jess's memorial service Saturday. Margo Clayton eulogized her father as a man devoted to spiritual and social advancement.

"He believed the world is a beautiful place, all is well, and everything would work out," she said. Jess, 83, died at his home March 22 after catching a bad cold, according to wife Leanne Converse.

Friend Georgia Haisler summed up the Baha'i faith tenet she said he lived by, "One world. One people. Please."

Jess moved to Haines in 1973. He worked as an equipment operator on construction projects including City of Haines sewer and water lines, the trans-Alaska Pipeline, Klondike Highway construction and relocation of the village of Point Lay.

He was active in the Friends of the Library, the Baha'is, Alaska Native Brotherhood, Haines People for Peace, Sheldon Museum, Alcoholics Anonymous, Haines Borough Public Safety Commission, The Men of Note, We the People, and the North Tide Dancers and Drummers. He was a volunteer substance abuse counselor, a leader of talking circles and an early-bird swimmer. "He was always on the go; I couldn't keep track of him," Clayton said.

Jess donated generously to local non-profits and fundraisers. "At Arts Council events he'd always pay with a big bill and say, 'Keep the change,'" said council treasurer Chip Lende.  

Jess was a close listener, a practice he learned as a result of severe dyslexia that kept him from learning to write. He convinced teachers to allow him to give oral reports but couldn't complete the written requirements for certifications or degrees.  "He was self-taught, and saw life as school. When it was done, he said you graduated. And so he has," Converse said.

Jess was a compelling and articulate speaker, with a good sense of humor. Daughter Margo Clayton said he'd often embellish stories with what his family dubbed, "Art-i-facts."

Arthur Jess was born in Gold Beach, Ore. on Jan. 7, 1931 to homemaker Margaret Meservey, and park ranger and engineer Vern Jess.

 A Boy Scout camping trip to the ancestral home of the Nez Perce Indians kindled an interest in his Native heritage that would direct and inform the rest of his life, his family said. Jess was a member of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians. He played football at Pendleton High School and soon afterward moved to Alaska where his father worked for the Army Corps of Engineers. "He fell in love with Alaska," Margo Clayton said. He joined the Army in Fairbanks and later served in the National Guard. He was a marksman, a biathlete and drove riverboats, operated heavy equipment and ran a dog team there.

A marriage to Margaret Norum produced a daughter and the family moved to Kenai and then to Arizona where Jess tested equipment for Caterpillar. A devout Baha'i, Jess's visits to the faithful on the Navajo Reservation led to the adoption of his son, Tim. Jess was working in North Pole, where he met Leanne Converse in 1990. They were married in Haines on May 12, 2001.

Mayor Stephanie Scott said that when she was a newly single parent, Jess offered to help her.  "One day he showed up when I was wrestling with my rototiller. Art took over. He rototilled my entire and very large garden stopping occasionally, to rest, I thought initially. And then I glanced. Art was lifting handfuls of newly tilled soil and letting the loam flow through his fingers, blessing the land and its potential to provide sustenance for my family. It was the best garden year I have ever had."

About two years ago Jess was reunited with Michael Meldon, a son from a youthful romance. "It only took 62 years and the Internet age but Dad had always hoped that the day would come," Margo Clayton said.

Jess was preceded in death by his brother David, and leaves his wife Leanne Converse and daughter Margo Clayton of Haines; sons Tim Jess of Marysville, Wash. and Michael Meldon of San Louis Obispo, Calif .; sister Joyce Gardner and half-sister Kathy Kniep of Quincy, Wash .; half-brother Coulee Sheets of Peshastin, Wash .; and grandson Donovan Clayton of Desert Hot Springs, Calif.  

The family held a burial-at-sea on Sunday. Son-in-law Lee Clayton and friend Wayne Price rolled the locally made steel casket off the deck of a tour boat as porpoises leapt in the waves. "He was a very great man," Wayne Price said, "and now he will be running with us in our dreams."

Memorial donations may be made to the Chilkat Valley Community Foundation at P.O. Box 1117, Haines, AK 99827 or chilkatvalleycf.org.