KL7AG - December 1, 2018

---

Albert F. 'Al' Weber Fairbanks, AK QCWA # 10358 Chapter 92

First Call: W1JXD       Other Calls: KL7AEQ

XYL: Flo KL7AZ Q# 12694 (SK)

Albert Frederick Weber was born Jan. 27, 1917, in Jersey City, New Jersey, and lived there long enough to acquire a Jersey accent and a ham radio license - KL7AG. He knew he wanted to get to Alaska and figured the military was the ticket. He first tried the Army and the Navy but this depression era guy was too skinny to qualify. At 18, he joined the Coast Guard - they took him because he knew Morse code. Thus started his career - working radio on old "rum runners." After his two-year stint in the CG, he was discharged in Las Angeles where he found work installing radios in aircraft. When that job ended, he was hitchhiking a ride to San Diego which necessitated a stop in Bakersfield. He looked for and got work at Metler Field, 15 miles to the north, and met Caryl. Later, they married and he settled in Bakersfield and worked for an electrical shop. It was now World War II and the U.S. needed radio folk, so Al got work teaching radio communications to bomber pilots. Then the Operational Support System branch recruited him and Caryl and sent them both to school in Santa Barbara with an agreement to post them both at same station. The OSS (this is the agency that became the CIA in 1952) reneged on that deal so Al went to work in an electronic shop in Santa Barbara. But the OSS nabbed him, checked him out for a top secret clearance and put him to work. He was with them for the duration of the war keeping surveillance communications working on the Aleutian Islands and other sites in the Pacific.

By the time the war ended, he had two children and more thoughts of Alaska. 1946-47 found him in Seattle, and in 1948, he was in Juneau at a radio supply/repair shop. The shop went bankrupt and Al went to Seward via Anchorage. There he was "jack-of-all-trades" installing and repairing mobile radios, working as a longshoreman, working at the local power plant, driving cab, photographing weddings and "whatever." Then in Palmer and Anchorage he worked in photo studios, radio shops and installed radios in police cars and cabs. He divorced from Caryl and moved to Fairbanks with his daughter Ann. There, he became chief engineer for radio station KFRB. He met fellow ham Florence Robinson "on the air" and married her at Camp Denali in August 1959.

At about this time, Al became a private pilot - Florence already was an experienced pilot - and acquired a P18 and a Cessna 140A, which Al flew to bush towns to do radio work. He flew until regulators said his eyesight wasn't good enough. In the early '60s, Al was part of the crew that built and maintained the Gilmore Creek tracking station. When Gilmore was turned over to contractors, Al taught radio and electronics at UAF. Al was one of the founding members of the Arctic Amateur Radio Club and taught many radio classes. He and a few other hams ran Morse code practice several nights a week at different speeds. One of the last paying radio jobs Al had was in the '70s on the Tustumena state ferry when she made her runs out to the Aleutian Islands.

In his "spare time," he and Florence built their home on Grenac Road with all the latest ham radio gizmos. They were ready when the big flood came in '67 and played a major part in the emergency communications at that time. Al's radio gear was always on, as he monitored the locally agreed upon emergency frequency. And not just for emergencies - for fun events, too. In the pre-cell phone era, Al and others hams ran communications for the Yukon 800 boat race, the Equinox Marathon, the North American Sled dog races, the Yukon Quest and other events.

Al had fun of all sorts, too. He was a canoer/kayaker. He built his own fiberglass kayak. He and Florence went on numerous river trips - Beaver Creek (before it had easy access), Chena, Chatanika, Birch and Nenana. They were avid skiers - skiing all the trails around Two Rivers, Gilmore Dome, Granite Tors, Chena Hot Springs and Goldstream. He became an expert on bicycles and biked to Cordova, Valdez, Anchorage, Denali Park and around town. When he was 65, they biked around New Zealand. In the '80s they took up square dancing and Al taught beginning lessons. They did this as long as their knees worked. When Al was 69, he and Florence took up scuba diving and dove in Harding Lake, Cordova, Whittier, Hawaii and numerous places in the Caribbean. They loved travel, going to Australia and did numerous road trips in the USA, Canada and Mexico.

Al was an enthusiastic musician (he shares a birth date with Mozart). He received a guitar as a kid and loved it and eventually learned to play anything with strings - guitar, ukulele, mandolin, violin, balalaika, autoharp and regular harp. He could blow a harmonica, didgeree doo, bag pipes, recorder and tin whistle. In the '70s and '80s, Al was on stage with Fairbanks Light Opera Theater. He was "the oldest young student" in the Student Prince, and hung out with the stars in "Carousel," in addition to appearances in "My Fair Lady," "Yeoman of the Guard" and "Pirates of Penzance." When his friends started requiring the services of the Pioneers' Home, Al started leading weekly sing alongs and continued when he moved there himself.

Al's last 10 years were spent in the Pioneers' Home. He died on Dec. 1, 2018, at age 101. Al is survived by his daughter, Ann Rosengren and husband Scott; his son, Albert (Chip) Weber and wife Kathleen; six grandchildren; seven great grandchildren; and hundreds of friends. A celebration of his life will be at 1 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 27, at the Palace Theatre/Saloon in Pioneer Park. That is the day he would have been 102 years old.

Published in Daily News-Miner on Jan. 20, 2019

FAIRBANKS - Two years ago(2017), Al Weber did something he has never done before. He let his hair grow. Now, as he approaches his 100th birthday, he sports a thin white ponytail. Maybe he will cut it, maybe he will continue to let it grow. He hasn't decided yet.

This longtime Alaskan lives at the Fairbanks Pioneers' Home now, where he leads sing-a-longs, practices his harmonica, autoharp or fiddle, and visits with friends.

It was never too late for Weber to try new endeavors, whether it was learning to scuba dive in his late 60s or learning to play the autoharp at 79.

His hobby of radio communications became his career, when he trained bomber pilots to use radios during World War II. That skill came in handy when he ran a ham radio network from his home to help residents during the 1967 flood in Fairbanks. He has been in Alaska since 1951. His journey began in Jersey City, New Jersey, and continued with a stint in the U.S. Coast Guard in Honolulu in 1935.

"My plan was to come here when I got out of the service," he said. "I always figured I'd go back in and get sea duty north. I never made that. Along came the war and I was stuck. But I got a job in 1938 in Los Angeles where LAX is now."

He was a master of radio communications.
"I taught radio communications to bomber pilots, all the big guys. A classroom of 100 guys, all bigger than me," he said. Weber described himself as "117-pounds soaking wet, 5-feet, 9-inches."

He was three pounds under the weight that the military required for his height. So when he got to training at boot camp, he told the doctor, "I haven't been eating too well the last week or so." "That's on my discharge papers too," he added, with a laugh.

After the war, he eventually headed north to repair radios and to run a photo studio in Anchorage. His thought was, "Why not go to Alaska?" He got a job as a radio engineer at KFRB Radio.

Weber has always been a ham radio operator. In fact, he still has a unit in his room at the Pioneers' Home. It was through radios that he met his wife, Florence.

"Flo was not meetable," he said. "She was a ham radio operator as was I. I used to hear her on the air."

He contemplated how to meet her. But his friends, Celia Hunter and Ginny Wood, who lived in the part of Fairbanks called Dogpatch, told him, "You'll never get to her."

He took that as a challenge.
"One night, we all met on the air. Florence came on and there was this screech and such as she was tuning her transmitter. It was one she had built. So I got on and told her, 'I've got something here to fix this.' There was dead silence. She plain flat ignored me. Hard to get. That was Florence."

Weber and his daughter were living in an old Quonset Hut on Illinois Street. Florence lived nearby. He radioed her: "I know where you live. We'll be down to take care of that."

Florence replied with one word: "Don't."

"So Ann and I climbed in the car, we drove on down, got up by her door, Ann went ahead of me and knocked," Weber said. "The door opens, she sees Ann, she didn't see me. She opened the door and there I was. So finally, reluctantly, she let us in. It didn't take two minutes to fix that transmitter. I turned around and left and said goodnight."

"She was really gun shy," he recalled of his longtime spouse, who now resides in another section of the Pioneers' Home where she receives specialized care. "She was like that all her life. We got along for about 60 years now."

In fact, they married at Camp Denali, a remote resort at Denali National Park. And then they just went about living life. She worked as a geologist, so she traveled into the field quite a bit. He kept things going at home. Weber also became a faculty member at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

He dismisses the idea that he is a musician, even though he started playing music at age 10.

According to his longtime friend Courtney Linkous, who visits him regularly at the Pioneers' Home, "He would go out with his little guitar, stop in at a bar, not to drink, but to play. He'd play a few songs, then all of a sudden he was there till 4 o.clock in the morning."

He provided a mini-concert this week, right after lunch, playing the autoharp and accompanied by Linkous. They performed "Sparrow In The Treetop," a song that Linkous said she believes personifies Weber.

Turns out he learned how to play the autoharp at age 79. He taught himself to play.

"I've just been at it ever since," he said. "The rest is history."

Friends and family will celebrate his 100th birthday on Jan. 29 at the Palace Saloon at Pioneer Park. Festivities begin at 1 p.m. and continue until the birthday honoree gets tired. But don't bring any gifts, Weber said.

"I have everything I need and then some," he said. "Don't bring anything, especially no heavy thoughts."

Do bring your musical instruments, though. He's ready to jam.

Tara Woolery, who shows she is 4, attends the 100th birthday of her oldest friend, Al Weber,
last Sunday in Fairbanks. (Dermot Cole / Alaska Dispatch News) Published February 4, 2017


Al and Florence Weber stand in front of the greenhouse they built our of visqueen and aluminum pipes in 1974
Marilyn West photo


Al Weber visits with friend Judy Triplehome during his 90th Birthday celebration ar Hushers Hall.
Shirley Liss photo

April 29, 2018