Harold E. Andersen

Harold “Andy” Andersen, 93, of Sandpoint, died in his sleep Wednesday, August 26, 2009, at Life Care Center of Sandpoint with his daughter Karlen at his side. He was born to Norwegian immigrants in Seattle, Washington August 3, 1916 and was the oldest of five siblings that grew up on the family farm during the depression. After seven years of intermittently fishing and trapping in Alaska to put himself through college, Andy graduated with a forestry degree from the University of Washington. Upon graduation, he joined the military where he was a Navy Lieutenant and PT boat commander during WWII. At the end of the war, while stationed on Long Island in New York, Andy met and married Sibyl Richardson on Nov. 4, 1945. The couple moved to Alaska where Andy worked for the U.S. Forest Service throughout southeast Alaska doing research forestry. Their three sons and one daughter were born in there. Andy’s twenty-nine year Forest Service career included being the Supervisor of three national forests: the Bitteroot in Montana, the Kaniksu in northern Idaho, and the Superior in northern Minnesota. The family lived in Sandpoint from 1957 through 1960 and again form 1966 to 1971 where Andy is remembered on the Kaniksu as the Supervisor in charge of fighting the Sundance Fire of 1967. In Minnesota’s Superior National Forest he was Supervisor during the contentious 70’s when logging and fire suppression where hotly debated topics in the beetle infested Boundary Waters Canoe area. Upon retiring from the Forest Service in 1974, Andy taught forestry at Yale University for several years, having received his Masters Degree form there decades earlier. He also operated his own consulting forestry business before retiring to Mt. Vernon, Washington where he and Sibyl farmed thirty acres along the Skagit River. In 1998 Andy moved to Baker, Oregon to live with his son Arvid and his family and then in 2001 he relocated to Sandpoint. Andy’s life passions were forestry, farming, his children and grandchildren and being a member of the Methodist Church. Andy was preceded in death by his parents, a brother, his oldest son Erik and his wife Sibyl. He is survived by three children: Craig (Lynn) Andersen of Olympia, Washington; Arvid ( Mary) Andersen of Baker, Oregon; Karlen McBirney of Sandpoint Idaho; seven grandchildren, a brother Arnie and Ellen Andersen of Seattle, a sister Myrtle of Seattle, and a sister Marie of Yakima, and numerous nieces and nephews. Andy’s children are eternally grateful to the staff, past and present, at Life Care for the loving care bestowed upon their father over the last seven years, as well as Dr. Burgstahler and the doctors at Internal Medicine.