Chris Angelo Cawthorne, 69

Chris Angelo Cawthorne, 69, passed away peacefully in the Wrangell Hospital on December 3, 2012.

He was born in New York City, N.Y. on October 2, 1943. Chris grew up in Miami and the Florida Keys.

In 1960 he enlisted in the Army and was stationed in Italy where he learned to ski. He traveled all over Europe, driving his sports car through the Alps on weekends and days off. In 1964 he watched the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria and would later talk about wearing bunny boots at the Olympics, toasty warm while everyone else was freezing.

In 1964, free from service, Chris returned to the States and hitchhiked across the country many times over, working when he needed money and living the hippy lifestyle.

Eventually he came to Alaska in pursuit of a woman he met in Florida. He had $17 and his toolbox and immediately fell in love with Wrangell, he always said, because it was a “funky” town. Someone offered him a job in the boatyard and he decided to stay. He sincerely liked the local people and the beauty and freedom of living in Alaska helped to sustain him all his life.

Chris met Charlotte Lord in Wrangell where she was working as a cook at the Stikine Inn. In 1979 they married in Stone Mountain, Ga. on the Lord family’s property then returned to Alaska. The new couple built a float house together in Wrangell (with a shop in back for Chris) and were married a year before their first child arrived, a son, Dylan. A year and half later Dylan’s sister, Dana, was born.

The Cawthorne family got a lucky break when Charlotte won property at Olive Cove in a land lottery. Friends helped tow their unfinished float house to Etolin Island and began to work on building a homestead. While in Florida he attempted to start a leatherworking business and when he relocated to Alaska he was determined to find a trade, which would allow him to support the family from Olive Cove. He experimented with making knives on his own and then in 1985, Chris met one of his idols, Bill Moran, who taught Chris to forge. Chris would continue to improve his technique with every new blade for the next 27 years.

An avid interest in aviation brought him to flying lessons in 1987 and he completed 6 hours of flight training.

Anyone from Wrangell knows Chris, aka Hippy Chris. Some recognize his homemade “trike”, a three wheeled motorcycle known as the Batmobile and Hootsie, his faithful companion. Those who know him well have called him an artist, an inventor, a genius, and a modern-day Renaissance Man.

Whether he was working in his shop at Olive Cove putting the finishing touches on another gorgeous knife, building boats at Svendsen’s Boat shop, rubbing shoulders with the pilots and mechanics working on airplanes, collecting writing and artwork for his epic ‘zine (Local Color) or playing drums with local musicians, Chris was always engaged in something interesting. He would talk to anyone about anything and “discussing issues” could take hours.

Chris would alternate working and living between Olive Cove and Wrangell for the rest of his life, but after ten years of marriage Charlotte left for Anchorage and the two separated. As his children moved with her around the country, Chris did his best to remain a part of their lives, spending summers with them in Wrangell and making trips to Anchorage, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Georgia to visit them over the years.

Chris began to complain of headaches and feeling “off” around September 2011. Tests revealed an aggressive brain tumor in advanced stages in Chris’s brain. The medical team at Virginia Mason came to know him during his visits and they grew to love him too.

He fought with everything he had. He came home from final treatment excited to get back to his projects. He got along okay for a few months and everyone hoped for a miraculous recovery but it wasn’t to be. Despite surgery, and radiation and chemotherapy in Seattle, the tumor returned with a vengeance less than a year later. Dylan and Dana were both able to spend time with Chris in the final days.

Chris was preceded in death by his mother, Ellen Cawthorne of Miami, Fla.

He is survived by son Dylan currently of Odense, Denmark; daughter Dana, and cousins Dottie, Ronnie, and Shelia Rudesill.

An informal memorial gathering was held at the American Legion Hall on December 7. Longtime friends and Chris’s son and daughter shared food and warm memories. It was an evening he would have loved being at and seemed present in spirit.