William Edward Bittner |
| Posted 2021-04-26 by Pat R |
| Wickenburg Sun (Wickenburg, Arizona) Thursday, January 26, 1989, p. 1 Alaska pioneer and flyer William Bittner dead at 71 Memorial services are scheduled at 11 a.m. today (Thursday) at St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Wickenburg for William Edward Bittner, 71, of Anchorage, Alaska and Congress, who died at Scottsdale Memorial Hospital North on Jan. 22, following a lengthy illness. Graveside services will follow later, with Bishop Edward Turner, formerly of the Virgin Islands diocese and an early Anchorage classmate of Mr. Bittner's, officiating. A son of Alaska gold rush pioneers, Mr. Bittner was born in Anchorage on Jan. 24, 1917. His family purchased lots auctioned by the government in 1915, to start the town of Anchorage, a seaport for the railroad to be built to Fairbanks. After his early years in the new town, where he was an outstanding basketball player, Mr. Bittner attended Drew Preparatory School in San Francisco and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. While at USC, he worked as an extra in films, two of which were The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Knute Rockne Story. During the summers he earned college money by fishing commercially for salmon in Bristol Bay, when only sailing ships were allowed. While teaching in flight school in Arizona in 1943, he married Elladean Hays, daughter of pioneer California and Arizona cattle ranchers. After several years in San Diego, where the couples three children were born, the family returned to Anchorage, where Mr. Bittner worked in contracting and maintenance on military bases throughout Alaska. Mr. Bittner was active in a number of sports, including tennis, golf and skiing, and was a tournament bridge player. His summers, through his life, were spent flying and fishing Alaskan waters. In 1972, he joined in a venture to drill a deep well and develop land on part of the Hays Ranch near Congress, where the Hays family had run cattle since 1912. Mr. Bittner was an active golfer and a member of the Los Caballeros Golf Club and the Wickenburg Country Club. Survivors include his wife, Ellie; two daughters, Catherine Stevens, an attorney and wife of Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, and Judith Bittner, Alaska's Historic Preservation Officer; a son, William Hays Bittner, who practices law in his Anchorage firm; and four grandchildren. See Also: Find A Grave |
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