Russell Francis Conrad

Russell Francis Conrad was born on February 24, 1920, in Cranbrook, British Columbia, and died November 16, 2019, in McKinleyville, California. He was three months shy of his 100th birthday.

Russ was as vibrant in his last week on earth as he was his entire life; cogent, keen, individual, with a determination and stubbornness that defied the laws of physics and of aging for a good long while.

The oldest of seven children, he outlived all of his siblings. He was outgoing, athletic, and adventurous; in the winters he played hockey on Lake Moyie and skied, and fished all summer. A hard-scrabble upbringing in Moyie -- a tiny mining community along the southern end of Lake Moyie, in British Columbia -- imbued in him a strength and determination that served him throughout his life. At 14, he moved to Kellogg, Idaho, to live with his grandparents in order to attend high school. First in his family to earn a college degree, he attended the University of Idaho from 1939-1944, earning a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering.

In 1943 he married Lucille Vanderpool. Upon graduation, Russ entered the U.S. Navy and was stationed at several bases in the U.S as World War II wound down. On V-J day he was in San Francisco, and subsequently marched in a parade to welcome back General Wainwright from Corregidor. He was honorably discharged in 1946.

After World War II, Russ received an offer from Pacific Telephone Company for an engineering position in Portland, Oregon. His wife and he moved to Portland, and in 1946 had a son, Lindsey Conrad. In 1950 he and his wife were divorced. In the ensuing years, he became active in the Portland Junior Chamber of commerce, as an officer and a ski instructor on Mt. Hood in Oregon and at Sun Valley, Idaho. As a member of the Mazamas, a local mountaineering organization, Russ scaled several of the peaks in the Pacific Northwest. He also found time to coach the Pacific Telephone Company’s women’s softball team to a city championship.

As a young man he became involved with the brotherhood of the Freemasons, a relationship which evolved and deepened over the course of his life. In Portland, where Russ lived for the majority of his life, he joined the Portland Valley Scottish Rite, Milwaukie, Oregon, Lodge, as well as the Al Kader Temple as a Shriner. He was also a member of the Royal Order of Scotland.

Always ready for new challenges, he relocated to New York from Portland, Oregon, in 1960 to work on several special projects for Western Electric. He traveled to Nigeria to help install the country’s first phone system, as well as to the Dew Line (Distant Early Warning Line, a system of radar stations in the far northern Arctic region of Canada, a secret Cold War project), Alaska, and Iceland. While in New York he met the love of his life, Marylyn Morrell, who was from Portland. Two daughters Lisa, and Lauren, were born in New York. They returned to Portland to raise their children; a third daughter — Maya — was born a few years later.

Russ was a man of many projects: he became interested in genealogy in the 1950s; his son Lindsey ignited a long-term interest in coin collecting on a father and son road trip to Canada; he studied German. After a nearly 40-year career with “Ma Bell,” Russ retired, taking up dormant interests and cultivating new ones. His devotion to Marylyn, his second wife of thirty-three years and mother of their three daughters, was unwavering until Marylyn’s untimely death in 1992.

At the youthful age of 84, he began a new life in McKinleyville, on the north coast of California, with his daughter Maya. Russ loved being so close to the ocean and the mild climate. He walked the Hammond Trail often with Maya’s dogs; he documented the movement of the Mad River for years through photography, another of his passions. Even in his last years, when he could no longer walk, he cherished going to Vista Point to continue witnessing the ever-changing mouth of the Mad River into the Pacific Ocean. He was always open to new experiences; whether it was a modern dance performance in San Francisco in the early 1990s, a night Easter mass at Redwoods Monastery, or the exhilaration of white water rafting on the Trinity River at age 86. Everyone he met, including his wonderful caregivers over the last 10 years, were quickly charmed by his wit and warmth: in his words, wherever he went, “everyone treated me royally.”

He is survived by his son, three daughters, a grandson, Aren, and three granddaughters, Sarah, Olivia, and Amelia, and two great-grandchildren, Riley and Devin.

A private service was held at the Six Rivers Masonic Lodge in Arcata, California on Friday November 22, 2019. A celebration of his life for family and friends will take place in spring 2020 at Moonstone Beach, Westhaven-Moonstone, CA.