EDWIN A. RICHARDSON

Wasilla resident Edwin A. Richardson, 83, died at Alaska Regional Hospital Nov. 22, 2003.

A funeral service will be held Saturday at Valley Funeral Home Chapel, 151 E. Herning Avenue in Wasilla. Fr. Stan Allie will officiate. Interment will follow at Wasilla Aurora Cemetery.

Mr. Richardson was born Aug. 18, 1920, in Hartland, Maine.

In 1954 he and his family moved to Alaska when he was transferred to Elmendorf Air Force Base where he worked with the 5040th Supply Command.

In 1959, after 22 years of military service, Mr. Richardson retired from the Air Force.

Mr. Richardson worked in management for Anchorage Bedding and Furniture, as a counter person for Crankshaft Service and as a manager for Ingolds Automotive machine Shop.

From 1962 until his retirement, he worked as a civil employee as the head of on-base and off-base military housing at Elmendorf. After retirement from Civil Service, he worked as a manager in the shipping and receiving department at Nordstrom's in Anchorage.

Mr. Richardson had been a volunteer with the Wasilla Senior Center since the mid 1980s.

His family said, "Ed had a keen sense of survival and giving unto others. At the age of 2 he was orphaned and became a ward of the state of Maine, working on a state farm owned by the Gleason family. In his early teens he joined the military and began a 43-year commitment to his country. As World War II progressed, he was shipped to Germany as a member of the 71st Infantry Division. Although not one to share his memories of this experience, his unit was responsible for the capture and release of 18,000-plus prisoners at Gunskirchen Lager, a German concentration camp near Lambach, Austria. In addition, the unit advanced and seized a very high level German command unit, for which he still has the German flag. Upon returning to the United States, he married his first wife, Jeanette, in 1946 and became a recruiting officer for the military in Maine. From there he was transferred to Davis-Monthan Air Base in Tucson, Ariz. After serving there for almost two years, he was once again transferred to Maine, where he resumed his recruiting position. From Maine he was transferred to Spokane, Wash., and then to Salina, Kansas. From Kansas he was transferred to Elmendorf."

In 1979 he married Lillian Beckner. They moved to Wasilla from Anchorage in the mid 1980s.

Mr. Richardson is survived by his wife of 24 years, Lillian, of Wasilla; daughters Linda Butch of Tempe, Ariz., Grace Walls of Hesperia, Calif., Charlotte Withers-Mushat of Anchorage; sons Pete Beckner of Honolulu, Hawaii and Robert Beckner of Sierra Vista, Ariz.; grandchildren, who were the light of his life, Kimberly, Mark, Anthony, Charles, Jolene, Robert, Ramone and Elicia; and four great-grandchildren.

Arrangements were made by Valley Funeral Home in Wasilla.