Franziska
Born April 24, 1895 in Gubsenmoos.
Franziska, known as Fanny, Married LaVern (Vern) Dempsey (born April 2, 1895, died October 8, 1971) in Spokane about 1916.
Fanny (died July 22, 1978) and LaVern had three children. Burton (born November 18, 1918 in Priest River, Idaho), Eileen (born April 8, 1919 in Priest River) and Bob (born July 25, 1921 in Colin, Idaho on Priest Lake). Fanny and Vern were cremated and according to their request their remains were scattered on Puget Sound.
Vern was a very ambitious man who worked as a chauffer, drove a logging truck, was an excellent mechanic and took the family to Alaska for mining gold from 1934 until 1954. Fanny worked sewing clothing and at a drycleaners pressing clothing. They started a flight school in LaGrande, Oregon but after two students perished in a plane crash the business bankrupted. They lived in Walla Walla for a time. It was Vern's desire to be self employed which motivated his annual trips to Alaska in April each year. When they arrived in the spring their homestake would still be under many feet of snow. Their first task was to dig out their equipment and rebuild it. They would recover abandoned dredges and repair them. When the snow melted mining would begin. After a while mining operations would require dismantling the dredge and machinery to move to new locations. The dredge would be reassembled and mining would continue. They also used hydraulic mining to wash gold out of the sides of hills. Their focus for mining was a location about 60 miles from Nome. Fanny supported the crew by working 16 hour days cooking meals and doing laundry with a gasoline powered Maytag washer. Bob noted that the family did not earn much money from their gold mining adventure but a note on one photograph states they made $11,000. in ten days at Homestake.
Burton married Joann (born November 13, 1924, died November 11, 2005) on May 10, 1942. Burton and Joann had two children, Pamela (born August 17, 1944) and Dennis (born July 10, 1943, died June 12, 2021).
Pamela had no children.
Dennis "Den" retired from the Seattle Fire Department and has two children, Trevor and David.
Eileen married Edwin Maxfield (born July 8, 1913, died 1998) and they had three children. Gary, Sharon and Jimmy.
Bob married Daphne and they have no children.
Eulogy for Robert Paul Dempsey – told by Dennis Dempsey, his nephew
Delivered March 26, 2011
Daphne asked me to give this eulogy in a lighter tone in celebrating Bob’s life rather than in his passing. I am honored and I agree with her wishes. I have written about Bob from family sources, and from my own observances of the man I knew and loved. Time warp may have affected accurate re-telling, but it is written in the spirit of celebration and remembrance.
Robert Paul Dempsey, known to all of us as ‘Bob’, was born July 25, 1921 to Clarence Lavern and Frances Elizabeth Dempsey, their third child after Brother Burt and Sister Eileen. The parents were best known as ‘Vern’ and ‘Fanny’. All the siblings were born in Priest River, Idaho before the family moved to various places in the Pacific NW, before and during the Great Depression.
Vern was a talented handy man. He also learned heavy machinery repairs, much from necessity. In the 1920’s he and a partner began a short-lived flight training school when flying was still considered fool hardy and reserved for hardy fools. Unfortunately, Vern’s partner crashed the only plane they had, and the business folded. Years later, Vern staked gold mining claims in Oregon near Grant’s Pass and near Nome, Alaska in the mid-1930’s.
Eventually, the Dempsey family moved to the Seattle area about 1931 and settled on a small lot with a chicken coop, on a dead-end road, in very rural King County north of Seattle’s then N. 85 St. city limits. Vern converted the chicken coop to a livable home. A summer or two later, Vern jacked up the roof to make a living space of the attic for the siblings. Vern still had to earn a living, so the work ‘upstairs’ did not progress for several weeks. Meanwhile the roof remained open and in full view to the neighbors. The three siblings found themselves entertaining the neighbors as they had to dress, undress and sleep without benefit of privacy.
Both Vern and Fanny came from very humble beginnings – and so young Burt, Eileen and Bob learned humility and hard lessons of life early on. The family also endured the rigors of poverty during the depression with strong wills to survive and make do.
In June, 1939, Vern and Frances, Burt and Bob and the two Crosby brothers, Dick and Bob - boyhood friends of the Dempsey boys - booked passage on a steamer headed to Alaska, to work the mining claims Vern had filed while he worked for other employers. Frances worked as camp cook.
No vacation cruise in those days, the ship stopped at Dutch Harbor prior to landing at Nome – usually a 2-day trip. This trip took 7 days as the ship became locked in Bering Sea ice for 5 days. The crew had to break into supplies meant for Nome to feed everyone. Water was rationed also.
The food for steerage passengers was far from award-winning. But for $10. the cooks could be bribed for one cooked meal a day in their galley while at sea – a secret not known until the following year. While the ship was stuck in the ice, Bob Dempsey and Bob Crosby ‘happened’ upon several hot roasts cooling on a table near the galley… unguarded. Bob Crosby grabbed one, too hot to handle, and tossed it to Bob Dempsey who stuffed it under his only suit coat, hot grease and all. The two Dempsey’s and two Crosby’s secreted to the ship’s hold and quickly dispatched their prize, sans any eating utensils. Appetites not yet satiated, Dick and Burt scavenged 2 pies, which were also humbly devoured.
Men, women and equipment had to be exceptionally tough to survive in Alaska’s outback, even during the short summer months. While working a claim with the others on a tributary of the Casa De Paga River, (meaning "River of Gold") Bob Dempsey proved his mettle when a tooth became abscessed. He endured it for days while it festered. Finally, he decided he had to see a dentist (or whoever passed as a dentist) in Solomon, an outpost with only a few occupants about 30 miles away - almost 60 miles from Nome.
Bob trekked on foot over hilly tundra without benefit of roads or landmarks – only a compass to guide him through unfamiliar wilderness. The whole crew had backpacked their supplies on foot, as there was no road. It took him about a day of travel to get his tooth extracted and another day to get back to camp. Bob was only 17 then.
Pranks were a mainstay for this motley crew, like the day Burt plopped a cup of goose blood on the makeshift table and called out to Brother Bob and the two Crosby’s that there was one cup of Cool-Aid left. All 3 dove for it. Bob got to it first and gulped it down before his taste buds detected the fowl deed.
When Pearl Harbor was bombed on Dec 7, 1941 Bob and Burt were in Dutch Harbor awaiting passage home for the winter on the last ship headed for Seattle. A notice was posted, stating that draft boards would be notified of anyone leaving for the states, as the Aleutian Islands needed manpower to fortify against a Japanese attack. Bob and Burt wavered, as the pay incentive was very enticing, but chose to join the Navy rather than spend the war in the bitterly cold and inhospitable Aleutian Islands. As it was, it took 21 days to dock in Seattle as the steamer hugged the Aleutian Chain and the Continent to be safe from Japanese attack.
Bob enlisted in 1942 in Seattle shortly after Burt enlisted. Both ended up in Pasco, Washington before being sent to a military receiving station in California where they were given new orders. Burt was sent to Honolulu and Bob was assigned to a training ship prior to boarding the newly commissioned destroyer, USS Watts, which was built in Seattle. Burt became a shore-based mess cook. A year later he was working in the galley when he got a tap on the shoulder from behind. It was Brother Bob whose ship had pulled into Honolulu after long duty in…the Aleutian Islands! As it turned out, friend Dick Crosby was stationed at Hickam Field, in the Army. The three boyhood friends got to celebrate liberty in Honolulu in the middle of the war.
Bob saw action throughout the South Pacific theatre. Near war’s end off Okinawa, Bob witnessed Kamikaze war-planes strafe his ship as they sank another US destroyer. To my knowledge, Bob never talked about his war years, except one time a few years ago when I asked him about it.
After the war ended in August 1945, Bob was discharged from the Navy together with his model replica of the USS Watts he had built at sea. He went to work at the Bentley M. Steel works adjacent to Harbor Island, Seattle, later known as Bethlehem Steel. Bob worked there about 2 years. He then learned cabinet making from his Brother-in-Law, Ed Maxfield. Bob worked for Ed at his shop in Lake City in North Seattle until it burned down about 1954 or 1955.
Bob met his future bride, Daphne, in 1948 while visiting his Aunt Peg who had a ranch on the Carbon River near Mt. Rainier. Daphne and her mother, from Hobart, Tasmania, were on a world tour and were visiting relatives there also. Bob and Daphne were married in Tasmania, October, 1952*. Having followed her there he convinced her that He was her life’s dream. In March, 1953 they returned to the States, via Vancouver, BC.
Bob and Daphne made North Seattle their home in a rented house on N.107 St. a few blocks south of 112th Street & Meridian Avenue where the Dempsey family had lived years before. Over time, N.112th Street became home to the families related by marriage, known as Dempsey’s, Maxfield’s and Young’s, having found mates among brothers and sisters of each family. Nothing of this neighborhood remains today. It was replaced by Interstate 5, Ramada Inn, Seven-Eleven, and apartments. During the years of my youth, Bob & Daphne were part of the holiday gatherings of our inter-married families.
After the cabinet shop fire, Bob set up his own shop in his parents’ garage north of Seattle on Wallingford Avenue. From there, he and Daphne purchased a home on a half-acre on Buttles Road, Bothell where they have lived since 1957. Bob made the house more livable while Daphne made it more inviting.
In 1959, Bob built his own cabinet shop on the Sammamish River, just a half-mile from home. I was there to help pour the foundation along with my Dad. Bob made custom cabinets there for several years. Eventually, Bob became an employee of Western Plywood in Seattle where he organized and supervised the mass production cabinet division. Western folded or was bought out several years later and Bob began a 14-year career with Washington State highway Department, retiring in January, 1984. Daphne retired from Trans America Title the same day.
Bob and Daphne were able to enjoy their retirement years boating in the Washington San Juan and Canadian Islands. They cruised the San Juan’s with Tony and Margaret Howard in the 1990s. They cruised the Queen Charlotte Islands with Don & Doris Dunkle, who had an identical cruiser. They traveled with friends on land and sea. Over years, Bob and Daphne traveled all the western states and North Dakota to Texas. They caravanned with my parents, Burt and Jo for a month in Mexico. On their way home, Bob and Daphne escaped across the US border from Mexican police as Burt was stopped for a shakedown on pretense of speeding. But Brother Burt told the cops Brother Bob had all the cash in their motor home up ahead. A true gesture of brotherly love! The cops tore off toward the border as Burt radioed Bob to hustle across the border. Stubborn-ness runs on the Dempsey side, as Burt wasn’t about to give in to the cops’ demand for a paltry few dollars…even though the other option was jail.
Bob developed his self-taught talent for drawing and sketching during his childhood. He also had a penchant for designing and making detailed model replicas, which he honed throughout his life, his best example being the model of the Destroyer USS Watts he built from scratch (with match sticks) while at sea during WWII. Imagine trying to build a detailed replica in the middle of a World War in constantly rolling seas, where even managing a dinner tray was an art. How did he keep track of those hundreds of intricate parts he made? As an avid railroader in his adult years, Bob built a whole village, complete with mountains, tunnels, rivers, rail-yard and H.O. scale trains. He had it set up for many years in the attic of their present home in Bothell.
Bob was well known as a serious, sometimes rabid card player often ‘grouching’ over the hands he was dealt. Appropriately, the game of choice throughout our family the past 50 years, known as Progressive Rummy was also called "Grouch". But when the game ended, all was forgotten and forgiven…until the next time. Bob also had a fundamental aversion to umpires’ and referees’ calls, as he loved watching Football, Baseball and Basketball, or any competitive sport. Some of his best criticism was reserved for bad coaching. I enjoyed watching Bob ‘grouse’ at the TV.
One of my personal memories from my childhood involved my fun-loving ‘Uncle Bob’ about 1950. The ranch at Carbon River was stocked with maybe a dozen black pigs. Uncle Bob took me down to the pen to introduce me to the little porkers. He roped one and jumped on its back, chasing the others around the pen as they squealed and tried to get out of the way. Bob pushed his pretend ‘pony’ through the muck in his street shoes and clothes. He had a good time while the scene was indelibly ingrained in my memory.
Another indelible memory for me occurred on our front lawn on a summer’s day, when I was about 6 or 7. ‘Uncle Bob’ swooped me up and grabbed me by my ankles and swung me back and forth, over the fully charged lawn sprinkler - both of us fully clothed! Mom indicated her displeasure. I indicated my glee, screaming fear and delight.
Some years later when Bob had his cabinet shop behind his Folks’ house my Dad and I walked into the kitchen where Bob and his Dad, Vern were taking a coffee break. When Vern turned to greet us, Bob reached over and dipped his middle finger (minus one digit) into Vern’s coffee and began to stir it, for what I presumed was a salty, probably greasy flavoring. Both had missing digits – remainder finger not very attractive—and played this scenario on each other a few times.
When I was about 13, Bob presented me with an exact replica model he had made from scratch; a mid-1950’s Bryant boat of a popular 18 foot cabin cruiser for small budgets. It was about 20 inches long, made of balsa and mahogany, quite detailed throughout with a painted blue and white hull, complete with solid mahogany stand. I saved up my allowance to buy a battery-powered replica Evinrude motor for it where the batteries fit under the flooring. It was my most treasured possession for many years. I passed it on to my oldest son. He moved several times as a young man. We don’t know what happened to the model.
My ‘Uncle Bob’ was one of my favorite relatives, as is Daphne. Though he was stubbornly frugal, I admired him for his talents, his humor, his generosity, and his genuineness. He and Daphne together have made so many good lifelong friends, in addition to many friends at the Bothell Senior Center.
Like all of us, Bob’s life was not lived in a vacuum. We each put our own stamp upon other peoples’ lives and their memories, often without knowing it. He was a good person, as evidenced by his long friendships with friends and relatives.
Two of Bob’s best lifelong friends were his brother, Burt and his brother-in-law, Ed Maxfield, a tribute to good relations not always shared among relatives. He was also my friend -- more than just an uncle.
Sources: Bob and Burton Dempsey 10/21/2009
Pat Staeheli
Daphne Dempsey 12/2009
Bob and Daphne 1/12/2010
Den Dempsey 3/26/2011
Revised 4/18/2013