Citizen of the Year: G.N. “Pete” Vander Linden

G.N. “Pete” Vander Linden doesn’t take his age too seriously.

The 94-year-old Hoquiamite doesn’t have any secrets to staying spry, even though some have called him “the youngest 94-year-old” they know.

Vander Linden just stays focused on the little things.

“They keep renewing my driver’s license,” he said with a laugh last week.

The Daily World’s Citizen of the Year, is as glib about his award as he is about growing old. “I wondered what kind of mistake someone had made,” he said.

But Vander Linden’s friends and those who nominated him aren’t the least bit surprised.

At the center of every nomination letter was mention of Vander Linden’s service to the community, which for decades he’s spread across a number of organizations. He’s been a member of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, the Rotary Club and the Harbor Toastmasters.

He’s been a member of the Hoquiam Elks Lodge and the Hoquiam’s First Presbyterian Church for 51 years.

He was also involved in bringing hospice to the Harbor.

For Vander Linden, the reason for being involved is simple.

“You’ve got to support your community,” he said.

Upbringing

Growing up, Vander Linden said the mispronunciation of his first name — Gerald, pronounced like Harold — and his hot temper caused a few scraps throughout high school. Eventually someone called him Pete and it stuck. He told the story last week in the lobby at the Elks Lodge in Hoquiam. His schnauzer, Annie, a companion for every occasion, meandered nearby.

An Iowa native born in 1920, Vander Linden grew up as a farmhand, working for whoever would hire him. His $5-a-week paychecks, he said, were “big dollars” for someone working during the Depression era.

But farm work wasn’t for him, he said, and his primary lesson from that time was that his hand “didn’t fit a pitchfork handle.”

After high school, Vander Linden moved to Idaho to live with one of his eight brothers.

There, he joined the National Guard on Sept. 6, 1940. He was mobilized on the ninth, and was at Fort Lewis in Tacoma by the 16th. For the following five years, Vander Linden said he didn’t see a single bomb or bullet, serving in the medical corps at bases in the South Pacific.

Newly married and in search of a job after his service, Vander Linden applied for an apprenticeship with Hoquiam’s Pinnick-Coleman Mortuary in 1946. Two years later, he earned a degree from the California College of Mortuary Science in funeral directing.

When he came back to Hoquiam, Vander Linden only planned to work for another three months at the mortuary. Three months turned into the rest of his career.

Vander Linden bought the mortuary in 1964, remodeled it in 1966 and sold it when he retired in 1986.

Marriage and family

Vander Linden met his future wife Norma on Mother’s Day 1941. She passed away in 2010.

Paired up on a blind date, he said they took to one another immediately. She talked about them getting married before he went overseas, but Vander Linden resisted.

“I said, ‘No, I’m not going to go overseas and get my head bumped off and have you as a widow over here,’” he said. “So, when I came home from overseas, she met me at the door.”

The two were married on Feb. 3, 1945 — or “two, three, four, five,” as Vander Linden likes to point out.

His reluctance to marry before his service ended meant Norma had to wait 31 months before tying the knot.

“I thought that was great,” he said. “I just couldn’t think of anything better happening to me.”

For six years after their marriage, the two tried to have a child. Their only child, Claire, was born in 1951.

From her home in Pasco, Claire described Vander Linden as a “great father,” and recalled the things that earned him the designation. Fishing trips. Shooting lessons. Taking her and a carload of friends on monthly trips to the orthodontist in Portland. Giving away the funeral home’s unused cardboard for her high school classmates to make dance decorations.

He was always dedicated to his work, she added.

“I grew up understanding that the funeral home was there,” she said. “And if somebody needed him over there, that’s where he would be.”

A Hoquiam High School alumna, Claire took Vander Linden to her class’s 45th reunion last summer, where he was the center of the celebration.

“It was amazing how many of my friends came in the house (and said), ‘Oh, Pete’s here,’ and they’d go talk to Dad,” she said.

Supporting his neighborhood

Vander Linden’s community involvement, in large part, escalated with his retirement in 1986, he said.

“I said to my wife, ‘Well, I guess I’d better go to the junior college and figure out what I’m going to do,’” he said about his time just after retirement. “She said, ‘You’re not going to do a damn thing.’ So I haven’t done a damn thing.”

Most of Vander Linden’s friends would argue with that.

His memberships also include several years of volunteer service in organization administration, including presidential stints for the Eagles and Rotary clubs, as well as his current post as treasurer for the Hoquiam Elks Lodge, which he’s had for the past 15 years.

At the Elks, Vander Linden, among other responsibilities, collects money to help fund physical therapy for children.

Susan Campos, the lodge’s bookkeeper, said Vander Linden has declared his last year as treasurer of the lodge for the last eight years.

“They keep electing me,” he said.

Even with all his involvement, Vander Linden said he’s never done anything he hasn’t wanted to do. Years ago, he said, friends had suggested he run for the Hoquiam School Board. Then, city council. He avoided both.

“I don’t like confrontations,” he said. “So I steered clear of the things where confrontations would interfere with what I was trying to do.”

Vander Linden’s work hasn’t gone unseen. One nomination letter called him “a very community-dedicated citizen.” Another quipped that he should’ve been made Citizen of the Year “20 or more” years ago.

In Peter Hegg’s letter, he called Vander Linden “the best role model of positive active citizenship” that he knows. Hegg, who’s known Vander Linden since the 1960s, said their friendship grew closer in the ‘90s through church and Elks memberships.

Hegg knows Vander Linden as a man who’s always willing to contribute.

“… Most of the people his age start to say, ‘Well, I think I’ve done my thing and I’m ready to sit back and do nothing,’” Hegg said last week. “He’s never going to do that.”

To some lodgemates, Vander Linden is more than a treasurer or friend. Campos, whose father died seven years ago, said Vander Linden has come to fill that void. It’s hard, she said, to narrow down their relationship to a single poignant memory.

“Everybody who has ever crossed his path just loves and adores him,” she said. “He’s just a really great guy. He does a lot for people.”

Not settling down

Thirty years after retiring, Vander Linden still hasn’t settled down. Since 1989, he’s attended family reunions every year throughout the midwestern and western U.S. His trips have taken him to Tennessee, Arizona, Idaho and Minnesota, among other states.

This year’s reunion, he said, will take place at his home in Hoquiam, with Claire acting as host.

He has no plans to slow down anytime soon, he said, and won’t stop giving back to his community.

“It’s just something you can’t define,” he said. “It’s just something that you do.”

Kyle Mittan, 360-537-3932, kmittan@thedailyworld.com. Twitter: @KyleMittan