Uncle Bud

I returned home on Tuesday of last week from a quick trip to Juneau. My reason for going was to be there for my Uncle Bud's memorial service (on June 30). 

Uncle Bud passed away on March 15, 2024. He was my mom's brother, and the last living person of that generation for either of my parents. Uncle Bud was very special in my life. Although he visited us at various times when I was an infant and toddler, my earliest memories of him were when I was 4 years old, and living in Ketchikan, Alaska. 

Uncle Bud was a quiet man. He loved learning. I remember him sitting in our living room during family gatherings and contentedly reading his way through the volumes of our Encyclopedia Britannica set, while everyone else was engaged in casual chit-chat.

At one point in his life he was an avid model airplane enthusiast. I remember going with him to reclaim one of his RC planes that flew out of range and crashed into the branches of a tall tree. Some kind folks rescued it and called to tell him they had it. 

Uncle Bud was color blind. While he was going to diesel mechanics school, in Klamath Falls, Oregon, he bought a car. On one of his school breaks, he drove the 280 miles from Klamath Falls to Portland, where we lived, to visit and show off his new car. We all went outside to look at it, and were shocked by its toxic chartreuse color. Seeing the look on my Mom and Dad's faces, he asked the question he hadn't thought to ask before buying it:  "What color is it?" 

After both of our boys were grown, Dan and I moved back to Juneau for a few years. Tim followed us up there after a while. I'll always remember how Uncle Bud took to Tim. He befriended him, took him under his wing, and shared common interests. I've always been grateful for that relationship.

In 2022 I took granddaughter, Clara, to Juneau for a vacation. By then Uncle Bud was in an assisted living situation, but we got to visit with him one afternoon. I'm so thankful for that time we shared ... my last time to be with him.

I'll miss you, Uncle Bud. 

Ivan Womack Obituary

Ivan R. Womack, known to most people as Bud, passed away March 15, 2024 at the Juneau Pioneer Home.

Bud was born in Estacada, OR, to Ivan G. and Rose E. Meijer Womack, joining his sister, Margaret. The family moved frequently while his dad worked as a baker and cook in various logging camps. They eventually settled in Sweet Home, OR, when his dad opened a bakery. Bud always wanted to move to Alaska and on the day after graduation, he and his dad moved to Craig, and his mom followed soon after. Bud helped his dad with the bakery in Craig until he got an invitation from the military to join them. He served in the Army for two years at Ladd Airforce Base in Fairbanks. Following his discharge, he used the GI Bill to attend Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls, where he got a degree in diesel mechanics.

During summer school breaks, Bud returned to Alaska and helped in the building of the Ketchikan sawmill and the Tunnel of Ketchikan. Following graduation, Bud moved to Juneau to work for Northern Commercial Company, first as a field mechanic traveling to work on equipment in the Southeast communities and remote fish and logging camps and then as service manager of the five shops. In 1964, he met Ardyne Kassner Burns and they married a year later. Bud became an instant dad to Ardyne's daughter, Lisa Marie, whom he soon adopted, and their son Rodney completed the family four years later.

Bud and his friend John (Butch) Hogins started H&W Equipment in Lemon Creek working on all types of construction equipment, trucks, and buses. Following Butch's death in a car accident, Bud continued H&W until selling it in 1973. The next thirteen years he worked for Belardi and Schneider Company. Following their closure, he worked for construction companies in Juneau until he retired in 1985.

He brought his love of tinkering home – there wasn't a piece of equipment he couldn't fix, a skill his family relied on throughout his life. His shop was, and still is, full of every tool imaginable and all the odds and ends he just might need whether it was building or fixing something, building remote-controlled airplanes, or fabricating an airboat for trips up Berners Bay. In later years, he turned his tinkering to taxidermy, filling the walls of their Lemon Creek home with small animals and birds.

Bud enjoyed many years of moose hunting in Berners Bay, outside of Haines, on the Taylor Highway, and the Nebesna Road with his friends and occasionally his son-in-law or the whole family, but most often, Ardyne was his sole hunting partner. To pass the winters, the family took their snow machines all over the Juneau area and he and two friends built the first snow machine trail to Spaulding Meadows. Later in life, Bud and Ardyne enjoyed many road trips, going north to visit their old stomping grounds and south to see the country, always visiting friends and family along the way.

Bud was proud of his 50-year membership in the Operating Engineers Local 302 and his lifelong membership with the Juneau Elks Club 420.

Bud is survived by his Juneau family - his wife of 58 years, Ardyne; daughter Lisa Marie and husband, Daniel Tourtellot; and son Rodney Womack. He is also survived by brother-in-law Dan Kassner and wife, Lorinda of Juneau; his sister-in-law Linda and husband, Paul Loos of Nevi, MI; and many Harju, Clark, and Loos nieces and nephews scattered throughout the lower 48 states. He was preceded in death by his parents, sister Margaret and husband, Robert Clark; father and mother-in-law, Arthur and Esther Kassner, sister-in-law Joan and husband Leonard Harju and their boys George and John.  

We want to thank our Juneau Pioneer Home "family" and most especially the wonderful staff for making his time there, and our time with him, the best it could be.

There will be a gathering for Bud on Sunday, June 30, from 1:30p to 4:30; at the Juneau Yacht Club. If you knew Bud well, you knew he was a man of many stories and few words so please join us and share some of your favorite stories of him.