Keith Andree

Keith Andree
During the last few months of his life, Keith Andree said he had been thinking a lot about a boat that sank in the icy waters off Hoonah, Alaska. Keith lived in Hoonah with his wife, Marcia, before Keith's two sons were born. He was a scuba diver and had volunteered to look any remains or survivors, but neither were ever found. More than half a century later, Keith said he wished he could have done more to help them. At the time, this memory that came flooding back to Keith seemed random and unwanted. But if you knew Keith, it makes sense that his thoughts late in life would go back to a group of people he didn't know but desperately wanted to help. It tells us a lot about who he was, how he lived his life, and what he believed his mission on earth to be.
Keith died late in the evening on August 26, 2022. He was 84 years old. A celebration of his life will be held Saturday, September 17, 2022, at 1:00 p.m., at the New Life Assembly in Kittitas, Washington.
As a child growing up in Arizona, Keith had the run of the desert. He hunted jackrabbits, tamed snakes, and learned to respect and cherish the outdoors. He grew up in a large family that included his mother, Rose Bialik, and his brothers and sisters: Harold, Irene, Rosalie, Bud (Lawrence), and Robert. His father Lester Andree, died when Keith was very young. Of his siblings, he is survived by Rosalie and Bob. He is also survived by his wife Marcia to whom he was married for 56 years, by their two sons Derek Andree and Lance Andree, and by five grandchildren, Jason, Paige, Sydney, Ian and Silas.
After graduating from Tucson High School in Arizona, Keith enlisted in the United States Navy at the age of 18. He served for four years and was honorably discharged in 1962. In honor of his service, Keith's remains will be interred at Tahoma National Cemetery in Kent, Washington.
After serving in the Navy, Keith took a job in the small fishing village of Hoonah, Alaska, where he helped to install the village's first telephone lines. In Hoonah he met Marcia, who would become his wife, the love of his life, and the mother of his two sons. When Marcia tells the story of how she met Keith, she recalls waking suddenly from a sound sleep in her bed in Wisconsin. She heard a voice in her head that told her, "The phone is going to ring. Whatever it is, do it." On the other end of the line was a friend who invited Marcia to go to Hoonah to become and emergency school teacher. Without hesitation, Marciaâ€"who had never lived outside of Wisconsinâ€"said "yes."
During the early years of their marriage, Marcia and Keith lived a rugged lifestyle in rural Alaska. In Hoonah, Keith hunted the wilderness for deer, bear, and moose. They braved rough open seas in Keith's small boat, and came back with stories that made us wonder how they ever made it back to shore.
Keith loved to hunt, but he also had a tenderness for wild creatures. In Hoonah, he was adopted by a friendly seal who followed him around like a puppy and dove with him into the icy depths of the northern Pacific Ocean. Later, Keith and Marcia adopted a domesticated skunk, Henry. Although de-scented, Henry was often in need of a bath. When they finally got Henry into the tub he hissed at them like a cat, but somehow abided the insult without injury to either Keith or Marcia. Throughout his life Keith was often nursing injured birds back to health, or adopting wild rabbits in his yard. At one point after he retired in Arizona, he conscripted a snake to help with a particular kind of rodent problem he was having. He went door to door asking his neighbors to please refrain from killing his snake if they saw it, as it was not poisonous and was helping him with the gophers.
After they were married in December 1965, Keith and Marcia moved to Fairbanks, Alaska. They bought property along an old gold mining route called Gilmore Trail, and there they lived in a tent while they built a log house by hand. The house still stands today. In Fairbanks, Marcia gave birth to their son Derek in 1971, and Lance in 1973.
Over their years living in Fairbanks, Keith and Marcia became increasingly active in their church and devoted their lives to following all the teachings of Jesus Christâ€"including what some might see as the less convenient ones, like Matthew 25:35-40:
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?' And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'
In Fairbanks Keith found one of his life's deepest callings when he and Marcia became involved in prison ministry, a calling they continued to follow for many years thereafter. Keith and Marcia worked as a team, Marcia singing and playing her guitar, and Keith meeting, praying with, and counseling the many prisoners who chose to attend their services. After leaving Alaska, Keith and Marcia lived in Guam for several years, then moved to Keith's home state of Arizona to resume their prison ministry with inmates who had been transferred to Florence, Arizona from Alaska.
All his life, Keith was a tireless worker. After moving to Fairbanks in 1967, Keith worked for RCA and Golden Valley Electrical Association as an electrical engineer. His sons still fondly recall being dispatched by Marcia into Keith's study in the log house to pry him away from his drafting table for dinner, or after dinner, for a two-on-one wrestling match. When the boys were in grade school, Keith took a job at British Petroleum in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, where he was put in charge of running the power plant that provided electricity to a massive oil field. After retiring from BP, Keith worked for several years for the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, at their power plant.
Keith's generosity knew no limits. He lived frugally so he would have more to give to others. He gave so much it should have hurt, but somehow, one way or another, it always just seemed to enrich his life and the lives of everyone around him. This was one of Keith's secret to lifeâ€"although, he would probably say it was no secret. It was right there in the Book.
During the time Derek and Lance were growing up in Fairbanks, there were seldom years when the family lived in their house alone. There was always someone connected to the church who needed a place to stay, and so there was always someone staying at the house. They all became like a part of the family, enriching the Andrees' lives in ways they could never have imagined.
Keith was even more generous with his time. Before he retired he was always volunteering or helping somewhere. After he retired, volunteering became like a full-time job. Although he and Marcia enjoyed some traditional vacations, their travels more often took them on some sort of mission. He was much more in his element building a church in Nicaragua than relaxing on a beach in Hawaii. Keith became an EMT late in life and volunteered through the Red Cross when a Hurricane Floyd hit North Carolina in 1999. Keith was still going strong in 2017 when, at the age of 79, he and his son Derek travelled to Houston, Texas to volunteer in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.
Keith's need to keep busy and to be helpful was notorious. Whenever he would visit Marcia's sister, Cindy, she knew she needed to have a list of things to keep Keith busy around the house. He loved to have something to do with his hands and was eager to put his skills to work helping others.
During his last few years in Kittitas, right up until they sent him home due to COVID, Keith volunteered to tutor a local student in math at his neighborhood school. One of Keith's sons recently found the math textbook Keith had used for their tutoring sessions. Inserted into the book were several handwritten pages of advanced math terms Keith had looked up and translated into Spanish, the student's first language.
Keith never did anything halfway.
And that is probably why, in his last few months on earth, Keith's thoughts wandered back to the memory of that sunken boat in Hoonah. During his years in the prison ministry, Keith was proud of the success rate of the drug and alcohol recovery program he led with inmates. He was proud of the prisoners who were released and stayed out. And he didn't give up on the ones who went back in. We who remain on this earth without him may never fully know how many lives Keith helped change for the better. But even with all of the good he did, for so many people, it was not in his nature to celebrate, to get comfortable, or to pat himself on the back. His nature was to keep looking for a way to help more people. His nature was to dive, to search, to find, and to save, again and again, until the job was done.