Earl Robert Vrooman

Earl Robert Vrooman, 78, was born June 26, 1937, in Dupree, South Dakota, to Roy Milford and Etta Luella (Lindsay) Vrooman of Eagle Butte, South Dakota.

He had been living with pulmonary fibrosis the last few years and it took him unexpectedly, during a trip to see family in South Dakota, on Oct. 5, 2015, in North Platte, Nebraska, while watching a Seahawks game. (They won.)

The baby of 11 children, he spent his childhood running free and working hard on the family farm in Eagle Butte, South Dakota (Indian Country), the tribal headquarters of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation.

He told his sister many times he pretty much raised himself and done as he pleased because everyone else was too busy to pay attention to him.

He attended school in Eagle Butte, where he played football, basketball and baseball, graduating from Eagle Butte High School in 1956. He attended Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota.

After his mother passed away in 1957, he helped on the farm until he enlisted in the Army on April 1, 1960, which took him to Virginia for basic training. The Army brought him to Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, by way of the Panama Canal, with the Chinook helicopters he was assigned to work with.

After his discharge from the military on Jan. 30, 1963, out of Fort Lewis, Washington, he hitched a ride back to Alaska to make it his home for the next 52 years, living in Fairbanks, Healy, North Pole and, most recently, Wasilla.

He drove a scraper with Green Construction on one of the first convoys of heavy equipment to build the “Hickel Highway,” now known as the Dalton.

Helen Atkinson accompanied him and wrote a story about that trip for the News-Miner in the March 24, 1970, issue titled “Bound for Koyukuk Country: Lady hits winter trail.”

He was a proud retired union member of the Heavy Equipment Operators Local 302. While working as a coal miner in Suntrana, Alaska, he married Dorothea Watts on Oct. 24, 1965. They divorced in 1974.

He married the love of his life, Linda M. Cunningham, on Jan. 25, 1976, in Reno, Nevada.

He was preceded in death by his mother, Etta; father, Roy; brothers, Milford, Gordon and Donald; and sisters, Margaret (Filholm) and Lillian (Herren).

Survived by and grateful for having shared all his love and laughter are his wife of 39 years, Linda; sisters June Foley and Jessie Clauson; brothers Gail, LeRoy (Karen) and Ralph (Rose Ella); daughters Etta (Howard) Maillard and Kim (Dale) Deremer; sons Shane (Faye) Cunningham and Earl Jr.; grandchildren (Shane) Christopher, Jordyn, Joshua, Brittany, Enoch and Isaac, (Kim) Breanna, Lacey and Chelsey, (Etta) Rachelle, Matthew and Lindsey; great-grandchildren Bailey, Peytenn, Ryder, Ender, Luc, Emma, Gracie and Sailor, and many more nieces, nephews, friends and relatives.

We will never forget his legendary storytelling, unforgettable laugh, naughty sense of humor, salty language and his love for babies. He was very loved and will be missed.