Andy Endresen

Seward resident Andy Endresen, 84, died July 18, 2007, at Providence Alaska Medical Center from heart failure. He failed to recover from a heart attack he had suffered in Seward a week earlier.
A funeral will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday at United Methodist Church in Seward, with visitation beginning at noon. Interment will be afterward at the American Legion Cemetery.
Andy was born Feb. 26, 1923, in Nelson Lagoon (King Cove). He spent his early years trapping with his father and living a subsistence lifestyle in Western Alaska around Unga Island and Jacob Island.
He was inducted into the Army in December 1943 and was honorably discharged in 1946, serving in the Aleutian theater during World War II. A staff sergeant, he worked with the Navy repairing and restoring barges, PT boats and "J" boats damaged during the war efforts in the Aleutians and Western Alaska.
Andy was a master craftsman, a self-taught shipwright and a woodworking perfectionist, his family wrote. While in the service, he worked with a fellow soldier who later became a well-known naval architect in the Pacific Northwest.
He married Emily in 1947, living in Sand Point, where he built his first home out of dunnage (used) lumber.
Emily and Andy moved to Seward in the early 1950s.
Emily suffered a debilitating stroke five years ago and has been a patient at the local nursing home since then. Andy visited her daily for years.
Andy had a woodworking shop in the basement of his home, with his last building project being a 21-foot lapstrake skiff outfitted with beautifully crafted oars, his family wrote. "This is symbolic in that this type of skiff was used in fisheries 150 years ago," they wrote. Andy and his friends and family recently launched the skiff in the Seward Small Boat Harbor and took it for a "rowing sea trial."
Before building a boat, Andy would spend hours making a mold or model, often changing lines and form several times until it was perfect. He and Ray Anderson built several seiners for themselves and other Chignik fishermen. Later, he helped pioneer the fiberglass-vessel era. He worked for Delta Marine in the late 1960s and early '70s, crafting molds for seiners, gillnetters, yachts and sailboats.
"Andy loved working with wood, and it was humorously thought there was sawdust in his blood," his family wrote. He also commercial fished for salmon out of Chignik for many years.
Andy is survived by his wife of 60 years, Emily; daughter and son-in-law, Arlene and Chuck Oborn of Washington state; sons, David of Seward, Dennis of Anchorage and Frank of Washington state; and siblings, Agnes Gould of King Cove, Annie Mack of King Cove, Arthur Endresen of Anchorage and half-brothers Kenneth and Seward Brandal.
He was preceded in death by his siblings, Edmund Endresen, Emma Gunderson and Lydia Mack.
Memorial donations may be given to the charity of the donor's choice.
Arrangements were by Anchorage Funeral Home and Crematory. Floral deliveries may be directed to the funeral home and the church.