David W. Geddes

David W. Geddes

World War II Veteran

Join us for a celebration of Dave's life at Magnolia Lutheran Church on Sat. August 30 at 11:00 A.M., reception to follow

Dave passed away peacefully on August 21st, after a long, wonderful and exciting life that started on September 25th, 1919, in historic Pembina, North Dakota. He was the surviving child of three brothers and six sisters, born to Mary and Alfred Geddes.

He attended school in Pembina but left home at 15 to join the Civilian Conservation Corp. The C.C.C. was a highly disciplined conservation program run by the U.S. Army, part of president Roosevelt's New Deal. Dave served two stints in the C.C.C. then enlisted in the U.S. Navy at 19. He received a medical discharge then enlisted in the U.S. Army. He married his sweetheart, Anne Petrosky of Winnipeg, while home on leave in 1942.

He returned to infantry training and was shipped overseas for America's first invasion of WWII, the beach landings in French Morocco and Algeria. By the time the Axis forces surrendered en masse at Tunisia the American troops were battle hardened. When Dave set foot on the French beach at St. Tropez, he had already participated in the invasions, battles, and Allied victories in Sicily and Italy, which came at a huge cost in American lives. The invasion of Southern France was one of the most successful military operations of WWII. It took the Allied forces only four weeks to liberate most of France and Central Europe. They pushed the German troops out of France and fought into Germany until V.E. Day on May 8, 1945.

Dave was honorably discharged in 1945 and returned to Pembina where his plumbing career started. He relocated to Seattle around 1954, and went to work for the L.G. Massart Company, where he worked up to a superintendent's position. He met Ruth Beason in 1957; they married and bought a home in Magnolia in 1960. He and Ruth spent their weekends camping and visiting his siblings and their families. His work took him to many parts of the Pacific and Alaska, but when he started work in Kodiak in 1966, he found himself a new home. He left Seattle and remarried in Kodiak in 1972. He and his wife Beatrice were active in the V.F.W. and Dave was elected State Commander in 1978. They raised their family while Dave worked out of UA Local 367. In the summers, they operated a family commercial fishing site in Kalsin Bay, working with many of their grandchildren.

Dave and Bea retired in 1984 and became snow birds: traveling around the country, visiting family and friends, and making new ones, until Bea's death in 2003. Dave's heart led him back to Magnolia and the city he loved. He lived his last years looking out at the city skyline every night (when it wasn't raining). He was still an avid reader, and followed all the major construction projects by television and newspaper.

Dave was a husband three times, had six children, nine grandchildren, fourteen great-grandchildren, and numerous nieces and nephews, all of whom love and miss him. He kept in daily contact with his children and grandchildren, visiting in person or by telephone and Facebook. He wasn't one to hold back honest criticism, but he also never turned his back on a family member in trouble. If you needed ten dollars or ten thousand, Dave was ready to help. He knew life was a long road, full of bumps, and the bottom of those bumps were just temporary.