Wednesday, January 20, 2010

John Nelson Pomeroy


Time is the real currency of life. John Nelson Pomeroy, after 93 rewarding years, passed away at home on Jan. 15, 2010.

Born on May 27, 1916, in Grants Pass, Ore., the eldest of four siblings, Nelson spent his early childhood in Portland and Seattle where his father had established J.H. Pomeroy & Co., a contracting and structural engineering firm. After his mother died in 1925, the family relocated to the San Francisco Bay area where Nelson attended Mt. Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley. At that time he began work as a laborer in his father's company, which had been awarded a contract to build the structural steel approaches to the Golden Gate Bridge. Nelson eventually became director and vice president of the company and his work took him to remote destinations around the world, from the interior of Alaska to South America, from the South Pacific Islands, Japan and Australia to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. However, despite being the operational head of one of the world's largest construction firms of that era, Nelson maintained that his life's greatest accomplishment was marrying his childhood sweetheart Betsy and raising their four children, Ann, Jane, Charlie and Tom.

In the 1930s and '40s, along with Bechtel Corp., Raymond Concrete and Pile, Morrison-Knudsen, and Dillingham, the J.H. Pomeroy Co. formed the Pacific Naval Airbase Contractors. Nelson, an adventurer who loved the outdoors and especially the sea, went to Hawaii to work on the construction of the Pearl Harbor military base and survived the surprise attack on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. He then joined the Merchant Marines and served in the Philippines until the end of World War II. Throughout his career, he traveled extensively and left an architectural legacy throughout the world. In addition to the Golden Gate Bridge, some of his company's other notable building projects included the overhead crossing on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and the girder spans on the Richmond Bridge, the pontoon floating bridge across Lake Washington and the Smith Tower in Seattle, the St. John's, Ross Island and Burnside bridges in Portland, the steel superstructures for 18 bridges along the Alcan Highway, the wharf and approach trestle on the Red Sea in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, and the world's largest oil tanker pier in Kuwait. His fondest stories, however, hearken back to his days as boy working with his dad on their gold dredge in Alaska on the Stikine River. With a twinkle in his eye, he liked to recite the opening lines from Robert Service's poem "Sam McGee." There are strange things done in the midnight sun/By the men who moil for gold ...

In 1948, Nelson moved his young family from Sausalito to a ranch in Williams, Calif., in the Sacramento Valley, where he raised sheep, cattle and rice. In 1963 they returned to life on the water on Bainbridge Island, Wash. Nelson's pride and joy was a tugboat called the Owl, which he refurbished and which became his family's source of endless summer fun and exploration in Canadian and Alaskan waters. Winters were spent skiing at the family cabin in Crystal Mountain. After several years vacationing and visiting their sons in Ketchum, Idaho, Nelson and Betsy came to stay in 1986. They enjoyed life in the mountains, camping, hunting and cutting firewood. A talented woodworker, Nelson set up shop in his basement and made hand-hewn log bed frames. He could be spotted driving his pickup truck, usually loaded with log posts, firewood or food and tents for the next camping trip, or dining at the numerous fun restaurants he frequented throughout the Sawtooth and Wood River valleys. Over the years, Nelson was an outspoken activist for environmental and human rights, a familiar face at ICL wilderness benefits, and a protester to protect salmon runs on the Columbia River or to stop the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. Known for his characteristically strong handshake and straightforward manner, Nelson was a generous, good man who touched the lives of all who knew him.

Nelson is survived by his four children: Ann Scales, Charlie Pomeroy (Jude) and Tom Pomeroy of Ketchum and Jane Pomeroy of Bainbridge Island, Wash.; three grandchildren, Nate Scales (Lisa), Laura Raffetto (Mike), and Jordan Hawkes; three great-grandchildren, Ripley, Daisy and Annie; and his chocolate lab, Alice. He was preceded in death by his wife of 54 years, Betsy, in 2000.

Nelson's many lifelong friends often dropped by to visit and he was always ready to offer them "a nip." An opportunity to have a nip in Nelson's honor will be held on Friday, Feb. 12, from 4:30-7:00 p.m. at his home in Chocolate Gulch. Remembrances in his name can be made to Hospice of the Wood River Valley or the Idaho Conservation League.




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