John (Jack) E.A. Fruchtl

Dear friend, father, grandfather and great-grandfather passed away peacefully at his home on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008.

He was born May 1, 1911, in Kendrick, Idaho.

Jack’s life spanned nearly a century during which he saw the progress of life’s endeavors go from horse power, where at the age of 10 he walked behind two horses and plowed one of the family fields – to traveling to Germany, New Jersey and Georgia by jet plane.

He saw the end of the first World War and lived through the Great Depression.

His first job away from the family sawmill business was in the Civilian Conservation Corps in the north Idaho forests fighting the blister rust disease that had attacked the forests there as well as fighting the forest fires that occurred as a result of the weakened health of the trees.

In the late 1930s, he went to work as a lumberjack as a sawyer and later a loader/hooker of logs moving on to be a conductor on the trains that moved the logs from the job site to the headquarters of the Potlatch forests.

He married his wife Junie V. Reece in 1939 and they lived in Carduff’s Spur while he remained in the logging industry. They had their first child there, Edward Anton, in 1941.

In 1943, they moved to Lapwaii, Idaho, where he did some part-time farming and started to learn the carpenter trade. During their years in Lapwaii, their daughter Darlene and son Philip were born.

Looking for work forced them to move to Clarkston, Wash., in 1946. He worked as a carpenter full-time then. In 1950, the young family moved to the Lewiston Orchards, where he and his wife built a new home using after-hour time and weekends to complete it. They lived there until 1953. Once again hard economic times sent them looking for work and they moved to Moses Lake. He worked for the U&I sugar plant there until the building industry picked up and he went back to work as a carpenter.

During all of his years in the building industry, he was very active in the carpenter union and held many officer positions, attending the state conventions representing his locals. He felt very strongly the need to support and give back to the unions his time for the good they had done for him and his coworkers to further their need for decent hours and wages.

In the late 1950s, he learned to be a millwright/machine erector and worked putting in the missile bases around the Moses Lake area. He moved to the Spokane Valley and worked as a carpenter there for most of the 1960s.

Then in the 1970s, he built a home in the San Poil River development and worked on many of the dams in the area. During his years as a millwright, he worked on the Priest River Dam, the Wells Dam, Chief Joseph Dam and finally the third powerhouse of the Grand Coulee Dam. His last years working were part-time on the Hanford Reservation.

He retired from full-time work in 1978 at age 67 but did springtime work two more springs. He moved to Coulee Dam in 1981.

He had a life-long love of outdoor sports, from hunting deer and elk to bird hunting and most of all fishing – instilling the ideals of sportsmanship to his sons.

He took up bowling in leagues in Coulee Dam and Grand Coulee while he still lived on the San Poil and drove over the mountains faithfully in rain and snow to participate.

It was during those years, until 2006, that he made the wonderful family of friends who loved him as he loved them.

He was very active in the leagues, attending many state tournaments. His latest was in 2003 or 2004 when he bowled a 218 in a Tri-Cities state tournament.

He lived his life according to the Ten Commandments. He was a patriot, faithful friend and family role model. His sense of humor and teller of tales (mostly true) was legendary. but most of all, according to his reconning, he was a Ford man.

He was a practicing Christian, who put his faith to work every day in the way that he respected and loved all that he met. His integrity and honesty and hard working ethics suited him well in all he did.

He is the proud father of three children, six grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandson. He was the remaining child of his parents and five children.

With his passing, an era is coming to an end for the Fruchtl family but his legacy will remain forever.

A memorial service will be held on Sunday at 1 p.m. at the Grand Coulee Senior Center.