Howard Gilbert Ulrich Sr.

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Category: Obituaries

Created on Monday, 03 February 2014 13:57

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Services have been scheduled for Howard Gilbert Ulrich Sr., a commercial fisherman who survived the largest recorded tsunami July 9, 1958, in Lituya Bay, Alaska.
    A graveside service will be 2 p.m. Friday, Feb. 7, at Sitka National Cemetery. A celebration of his life will follow, at 3 p.m., at the Elks Lodge.
    Howard died Jan. 29 at his home here, with family present. He was 87.
    He was born May 12, 1926, in Santa Rosa, Calif., the son of Howard R. and Elsie P. (Otto) Ulrich. He grew up in San Francisco, and served in the U.S. Army from August 1944 to Oct. 1946, in Okinawa and Korea.
    He came to Alaska afterward, and married Agnes Lyda Mork in 1948 in Sitka. It was while fishing with his 9-year-old son in Lituya Bay in July 1958 aboard his boat the F/V Edrie that he survived a tsunami 1,720 feet tall. (The story of that is on this page.)
    Howard also was the skipper of the U.S. Forest Service boat, the Ranger, from 1972 until his retirement in the last half of the 1990s.
    His hobbies included photography, and Alaska history, and he was a member of the Sitka Elks Lodge 1662.
     “Howard, our father and grandfather, was supportive of his children and their efforts in life,” his family said. “He was always there for us to keep going. He cared for our well-being. He is loved and will be sincerely missed by friends, family, his children and grandchildren.”
    He was preceded in death by his wife Agnes, in 2009, and sons Robert and Kurt.
    Survivors include sons Howard G. Ulrich Jr. and Bruce R. Ulrich of Sitka; daughter Edrie Vardeman of Sitka; grandchildren Chelsey Ulrich, Stephen Ulrich and Christopher Vardeman of Sitka, Anthony Vardeman of Auburn, Wash., Mathew Vardeman of Renton, Wash., Jennifer Frame of Anchorage, and Rachel Ulrich Of Durango, Colo.; and a sister, Nadine Howey, of Beaverton, Ore.
    In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Salvation Army.

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