Otto Rigan

1921 - 2019

Otto W Rigan
December 14, 1921 - May 4, 2019
Otto W Rigan, age 97 and a long term Merced County resident died Saturday, May 4th in his Atwater home surrounded by family.
Otto was pre-deceased by Lorraine Rigan, his wife of 67 years, his mother Mary Loho in Atwater, and father Mattias Rigan, of Vienna, Austria. He had no siblings. However, he lived with a rhesus Monkey during his early years with whom he played, slept and squabbled as if he was a brother. He is survived by six children; Carol, Alice, Anita, Otto B., Jan and Tammy, nineteen grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.
Otto was born in Vienna, Austria in December of 1921. His mother had emigrated to Chicago when Otto was two years old with the belief that Mattias and young Otto would shortly follow. Unfortunately, Mattias was denied an immigration visa because of health.
With the help of Otto's mother in America, a USA Congressman became involved, and on the closing session of 1927, he requested Congress to approve an exemption to extend the now-closed annual immigration quota by one - for a malnourished little boy named Otto Rigan. It was hailed in newspapers on both continents as a gift from one country to the other.
On his sixth birthday, Otto was accompanied by his beloved father to an ocean liner in Bremen, Germany; destination New York City. He could not understand why his father cried and hugged him so hard, nor did he realize he would never see his Vati (father) again. As a minor traveling alone, he wore a note written on cardboard and hung around his neck, including the Chicago address that was his destination. Good folks around him guided him.
Upon graduation from high school in Chicago, Otto began his 26-year career with the Air Force - then called the Army Air Corps.
In February of 1944, Otto met Lori Wilkerson at the Trianon Ball Room in Chicago where the Lawrence Welk Band was performing. Young women were encouraged to attend to cheer up the embattled soldiers on their brief military break. By July of 1945, they were married in San Antonio, Texas, beginning their long journey that included six children and twenty-five military prompted moves before they settled in Atwater.
In 1956, Otto became part of the flight engineer crew for a B-36 bomber aircraft at Anderson AFB in Guam. One day their plane was severely damaged on take-off and lost control of its hydraulics and the landing gear. The craft could not be safely landed, nor would parachuting the crew into shark-infested waters work so well. So Otto crawled into the wing without a safety net, exposed to 160 MPH winds and a working environment covered in the spray of hydraulic oil for him to manually lower the aircraft's landing gear. He was awarded the Air Medal Award, the highest honor in peacetime.
By 1959, now assigned to Castle AFB with the 93rd ARS Squadron as navigator, he and Lori decided to set down roots for the sake of their children. With the help of a local contractor Mr. Hutchings and a few young airmen, they built their dream house in Atwater where they would live out their lives. Both passed in this residence.
Once retired from the Air Force, Their life got busier. He and Lori owned and operated Castle Furniture - later Castle Antiques - in downtown Atwater. Lori managed the store, while Otto employed himself as a navigator for freight airlines including Slick Airways, Seaboard World and Saturn Air. Most of his assignments were to Southeast Asia.
Still, with his fingers in many buckets, he never lost his desire to travel and seek out adventure. One such experience was a hundred-day educational cruise around the world, and another trying his hand at crab fishing in Florida, violin repair, and reconditioning antiques. He decided to build his own small canvas fuselage airplane with the parts he bought at auction in 3 barrels. He then signed up for a college class in aeronautical mechanics, offering his "project" for the students to build. He was denied his fourth enrollment in the same course. However, he did finish the rebuild, but he never flew it to his families relief.
It was not uncommon for him to get up during dinner and disappear, only to learn later that he wanted to do something at the store, or elsewhere as his whim dictated. By his own statement, he was not a family man, though he delighted in playing Uncle Sam and other high profile roles in public.
In the years following Lori's passing, two daughters have lived with him. Jan began assisting him at home, to be followed for the last five years by his eldest daughter Carol. He remained active until October of 2018 when he found himself too weak to stand. But, in the weeks before his passing, he was captured in a video dancing to one of his favorite songs.
A celebration of his life will take place this Friday at the Atwater Methodist Church at 2550 Linden Street in Atwater. The service will begin at 2 pm with a reception will follow.
A military ceremony and interment will take place on Monday, May 13 at 10AM at the San Joaquin Valley National Cemetary in Santa Nella.
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