Dick Proenneke - The Early Years
Richard Louis Proenneke was born on May 4, 1916 in Primrose, Iowa to Laura Bonn Proenneke (1884-1966) and William C. Proenneke (1880-1972).
He was the fourth of six children and was raised in a small farming community in the southeastern corner of Iowa about 30 miles from Keokuk.
The first Proenneke family immigrated to United States from Germany in the nineteenth century.
William Proenneke was a house painter, well driller, and carpenter. He had a horse powered well boring machine that bored 19-inch diameter holes up to 100 feet deep. Proenneke bored wells in Iowa and Missouri in the teens and 1920s.
Not much is known about Laura Bonn Proenneke's background but it is probable that her ancestors immigrated to the United States from Germany before the Civil War. Laura Proenneke was a homemaker and gardener.
Richard Proenneke attended elementary school in Primrose in the 1920s. His father purchased a Model T Ford for him to drive to high school in Donnellson in the early 1930s. Proenneke was not happy in high school, and showing an early independent streak, he dropped out after a couple of years. He was very interested in motorcycles and had a Harley Davidson as a teenager. Proenneke worked on nearby farms driving tractors and doing all manner of mechanical and building chores one had to do to maintain Iowa family farms during the Great Depression.
In 1939 Richard Proenneke combined his love of motorcycles and independent spirit undertaking a long "working" trip with a friend, Roland Schrepfer, through the west in search of adventure. They drove their motorcycle south to Oklahoma to harvest wheat and then northwest to Hood River, Oregon to pick apples and then down the Pacific coast to visit the World's Fair in San Francisco. The boys returned home by way of Los Angeles and Albuquerque. Proenneke began the trip with $30 and returned to Primrose with $10, demonstrating early in life both frugality and resourcefulness.
While in Oregon they visited the Frank Wilkinson ranch at Heppner in the foothills of the Blue Mountains, a place where Proenneke would soon work setting up remote camps for herders grazing sheep and cattle. In the spring of 1940, Proenneke returned to the Wilkinson ranch and worked there until the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. On December 8th 1941, he joined the U.S. Navy. He became a carpenter's mate and was soon stationed at Pearl Harbor where he worked for nearly two years. While he was in San Francisco to join a new ship, he climbed a nearby mountain and soon developed rheumatic fever. Proenneke was sent to Norco Naval Hospital near Corona, California for six months and WWII ended before he left the hospital. He received a medical discharge from the Navy in 1945. Regarding any lingering effects of the rheumatic fever Proenneke said: "After the doctor gave me instructions on what I could do and what I couldn't do. Don't sleep on the cold ground and don't get wet, don't get cold and don't get tired, this and that. Boy, you can't do that on a ranch, you know...but I never had any trouble."
Proenneke returned to the Wilkinson ranch in Heppner, Oregon and
worked until 1949 when he took a heavy equipment operator course in
Portland, Oregon. Later
in 1949, he flew to Alaska to visit a friend, Jack Ferguson, who
worked for the Alaska Railroad. The winter of 1949-1950 Proenneke
took a course in diesel mechanics in Portland and ended up grading
papers. People who saw Proenneke working wood or metals or repairing
everything from bulldozers to clocks considered him a mechanical
genius.
In the spring of 1950 Proenneke returned to Alaska and went to Kodiak with Ferguson to study the feasibility of cattle ranching. The venture never came to be and Proenneke used his training to work seven or eight years at the Kodiak Naval Station as a diesel mechanic. He also fished commercially for salmon at Chignik and worked for the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service at King Salmon in 1952.
Beginning about 1961 Proenneke worked for a defense contractor as a powerhouse operator and mechanic at a satellite tracking station at Cape Chiniak on Kodiak Island. During the years 1965-1966 he worked for another contractor as heavy equipment operator and mechanic. During the 1964 Alaska earthquake, a 32 foot fishing boat was carried two miles inland by the tsunami at a bay on the south end of Kodiak Island. Proenneke and another man spent three days winching the boat the two miles back to the bay where they were paid $800 apiece for their labors. Later at Twin Lakes Proenneke would become adept at salvaging submerged aircraft, the bigger the challenge the better he liked it.
Proenneke met Gale "Spike" Carrithers and his wife, Hope, while he was working for the defense contractor on Cape Chiniak. The Carrithers were building a cabin on a recreational site at Twin Lakes on BLM land. They invited Proenneke to Twin Lakes for a visit and he made his first trip there in 1962. After Spike had a stroke Hope Carrithers asked Proenneke to accompany them to Twin Lakes and since he was now working for himself he had more discretionary time. Soon Proenneke got the bug to build a cabin at Twin Lakes. While he was looking for a good spot and learning the country the Carrithers let him use their cabin.
During the years 1964-1967, Proenneke stayed at the Carrithers'
cabin part time as the wilderness bug captivated him. "...I had
looked around and found a location for a cabin and another
friend...Herb Wright, he had picked a spot and told me to stake it
and lease it.