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FAIRBANKS, Alaska / Daily Newsminer / January 15, 2009
By Mary Beth Smetzer
Photo by Bennie
Icy roads and high winds kept many Fairbanks well-wishers from singing “Happy Birthday” to centarian-plus Benny Albert on Wednesday, but Nenana locals beat a path to Albert’s home to share his special day.
Albert celebrated his 105th birthday surrounded by family members and friends, visiting, eating birthday cake and sharing a large pot of moose soup prepared by Albert’s caregiver, Alex Ketzler, his great-great-great nephew.
“He didn’t sleep all night; he was really excited about the party,” Ketzler said. “And he was all happy with the presents.”
Although blind, barely mobile and using a hearing aid, Albert still has most of his teeth and especially enjoyed receiving gifts of gum, cookies and candy.
Sweets weren’t part of Albert’s growing up years. He first tasted candy as an adult in his 30s.
“He is actually doing really good for his age,” Ketzler said, adding, “but when he has a major health crisis and he goes down, he never comes back to where he was before.”
However, Albert’s mental capabilities haven’t waned.
“There’s nothing wrong with his mind,” Ketzler said. “He’s really with it. He always wants to know what is going on in the world.”
To keep Albert’s interests up, Ketzler presented his uncle with an LCD television, mainly to listen to.
“When he is in a good mood and really perky, he’s pretty interesting, telling stories about the good old days.”
In today’s world, those “good old days” sound pretty tough and isolated.
Born in the Bear Paw area near the confluence of the Kantishna and Bear Paw rivers, Albert was orphaned at a young age and raised by a man called “Old Albert” who lived off the land.
Albert in turn became proficient with subsistence survival skills and shared them with others throughout his life.
At different times, Albert lived in Nenana and Minto, working as a maintenance crewmember and laying tracks for the Alaska Railroad and working on the Lake Minchumina airstrip.
Albert was a commercial salmon fisherman for a time in King Salmon and remembers selling netted salmon for a penny a piece.
At Albert’s 100th birthday party five years ago, Gilbert Ketzler described Albert’s highly tuned woodsman skills.
“Benny went into the woods with some canvas, nails and paint, and came out with a canoe.
“He knew the trees, how to cut birch and split them for the ribs and spruce for the strips, then cover it with canvas and paint.
“It was a ratting canoe for muskrats, and maybe a duck dinner if you were lucky,” Ketzler said.
He never married but enjoyed a wide circle of friends during his lifetime.
“The way Alex takes care of him, he’ll probably live until he’s 110,” Marilyn Duggar said.
About Mary Beth Smetzer
Community News and Faith page editor
Mary Beth Smetzer grew up in Michigan, arriving in Alaska in 1969 after a stint in the Peace Corps in Afghanistan vaccinating women and children against smallpox. Mary Beth worked for four years at the Royal Oak Tribune, a suburban Detroit daily, and joined the News-Miner editorial department in 1986. In the early 1970s she edited The River Times at the Fairbanks Native Association, and from 1980-86 she was communications coordinator at the University of Alaska Museum of the North. Mary Beth is longtime quilter and one of the founding members (1979) of the Cabin Fever Quilters Guild. She loves reading and being a grandmother, and enjoys cooking, baking and fishing. She found Fairbanks to be a wonderful, supportive place to raise her three children, Megan, Nick and Gabriel, now pursuing careers in academia, police investigation and computer design, respectively.
© 2009 Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Photo by Bennie
Icy roads and high winds kept many Fairbanks well-wishers from singing “Happy Birthday” to centarian-plus Benny Albert on Wednesday, but Nenana locals beat a path to Albert’s home to share his special day.
Albert celebrated his 105th birthday surrounded by family members and friends, visiting, eating birthday cake and sharing a large pot of moose soup prepared by Albert’s caregiver, Alex Ketzler, his great-great-great nephew.
“He didn’t sleep all night; he was really excited about the party,” Ketzler said. “And he was all happy with the presents.”
Although blind, barely mobile and using a hearing aid, Albert still has most of his teeth and especially enjoyed receiving gifts of gum, cookies and candy.
Sweets weren’t part of Albert’s growing up years. He first tasted candy as an adult in his 30s.
“He is actually doing really good for his age,” Ketzler said, adding, “but when he has a major health crisis and he goes down, he never comes back to where he was before.”
However, Albert’s mental capabilities haven’t waned.
“There’s nothing wrong with his mind,” Ketzler said. “He’s really with it. He always wants to know what is going on in the world.”
To keep Albert’s interests up, Ketzler presented his uncle with an LCD television, mainly to listen to.
“When he is in a good mood and really perky, he’s pretty interesting, telling stories about the good old days.”
In today’s world, those “good old days” sound pretty tough and isolated.
Born in the Bear Paw area near the confluence of the Kantishna and Bear Paw rivers, Albert was orphaned at a young age and raised by a man called “Old Albert” who lived off the land.
Albert in turn became proficient with subsistence survival skills and shared them with others throughout his life.
At different times, Albert lived in Nenana and Minto, working as a maintenance crewmember and laying tracks for the Alaska Railroad and working on the Lake Minchumina airstrip.
Albert was a commercial salmon fisherman for a time in King Salmon and remembers selling netted salmon for a penny a piece.
At Albert’s 100th birthday party five years ago, Gilbert Ketzler described Albert’s highly tuned woodsman skills.
“Benny went into the woods with some canvas, nails and paint, and came out with a canoe.
“He knew the trees, how to cut birch and split them for the ribs and spruce for the strips, then cover it with canvas and paint.
“It was a ratting canoe for muskrats, and maybe a duck dinner if you were lucky,” Ketzler said.
He never married but enjoyed a wide circle of friends during his lifetime.
“The way Alex takes care of him, he’ll probably live until he’s 110,” Marilyn Duggar said.
About Mary Beth Smetzer
Community News and Faith page editor Mary Beth Smetzer grew up in Michigan, arriving in Alaska in 1969 after a stint in the Peace Corps in Afghanistan vaccinating women and children against smallpox. Mary Beth worked for four years at the Royal Oak Tribune, a suburban Detroit daily, and joined the News-Miner editorial department in 1986. In the early 1970s she edited The River Times at the Fairbanks Native Association, and from 1980-86 she was communications coordinator at the University of Alaska Museum of the North. Mary Beth is longtime quilter and one of the founding members (1979) of the Cabin Fever Quilters Guild. She loves reading and being a grandmother, and enjoys cooking, baking and fishing. She found Fairbanks to be a wonderful, supportive place to raise her three children, Megan, Nick and Gabriel, now pursuing careers in academia, police investigation and computer design, respectively.
© 2009 Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
