Robert Lundgren

Captain Robert E. Lundgren, of Bainbridge Island, died on April 23 at Harrison Medical Center. He was 82.

He was born at Providence Hospital in Seattle on July 12, 1926 to “Osc” (Oscar Edward) and “Aggie” (Agnes Ruthrauff) Lundgren and grew to manhood in Eagledale and Port Blakely. 

He enjoyed his early years with his brother, cousins and friends on the island. He was another kid on his bike, pulling berries from the fields, haunting the gullies, getting into deep water in too-small rowboats and riding the waves with his family’s boats. 

He graduated from McDonald Elementary School and attended Bainbridge High School. He first went to sea at age 13 when his father hired him to work on his Black Ball Ferry crew. In July 1943, at 17, he convinced his mother to grant him permission to join the U.S. Navy. After training at U.S. Naval Training Station in Farragut, Idaho, and pharmacy school in Pearl Harbor, he joined up with the fast attack freighter USS La Salle (AP102) as a pharmacist mate and spent the next two years cruising in the thick of South Pacific war zones, delivering Marines and their supplies and returning with the wounded.

After sustaining serious injuries while on home leave near the end of the war, he was reassigned to a shore command at Fort Ward’s Naval Radio Station on Bainbridge, where in 1946 he intercepted and captured a vivacious Seattle girl visiting the Fletcher Bay dance pavilion. While he was a quiet, soft-spoken and non-dancing guy, Bob was sufficiently persuasive to convince May to become his wife. They married two weeks after his discharge from the Navy on July 24, 1947 in Burien.

He resumed his education, living in Ballard and working in the Seattle shipyard while he attended Edison Vocational Technical School, where he gained his high school diploma in 1951 and a boatbuilding degree in 1952. By then he and his family had outgrown their Ballard cottage and returned to Bainbridge, where he built the family home on Rose Lane overlooking Eagle Harbor, next door to where he grew up.

With an expanding “crew,” he returned to the sea, signing aboard the new Washington State Ferries. He quickly worked his way up from ordinary to able-bodied seaman, quartermaster, and first mate. After studies at Killdall’s Navigation School, he gained his captain’s papers in 1958. 

He worked on every boat and run in the WSF system, including the original Kitsap County Transportation boats, the classic single enders such as the Chippewa, the wooden electric “shoeboxes” and steel electrics from San Francisco, and each of the new fleet of Nickum-Spaulding designs from the Evergreen State up to the Walla Walla and Spokane class. He was also one of the many skippers who survived the capricious hijinks of the infamous Kalalaka. 

He retired as the WSF Fleet Commodore in 1986 and took up his fourth career as a full time grandpa and part-time private airplane pilot. His seafaring life is continued through the service of his son, Doug, and daughter Debbie – both able-bodied seamen aboard the WSF fleet – and the maritime history work of his son, Stephen.

He enjoyed extremely strong coffee and chocolate, Marilyn Monroe, music of the big bands and with Moskowitz, cats, and his grandkids. A skilled boatwright, he helped create fleets of Boy Scout sailboats and canoes and taught all his children to “row their own boats.”

He is survived by his younger brother, “Bud” Oscar E. (Mollie) Lundgren of Mill Creek; his wife, “Honey” May at the family home; sons Douglas A. (Donna) Lundgren of Manitou Beach and Stephen Edwin (Suann) Lundgren of Ballard; daughters Robert Wilder of Orient and Debbie (Craig) Sabatini of Seabeck; grandchildren Colin, Evan, Scott, Katrina, Kelly, Korrie, Kimberly and Kathy; and two great-grandchildren, Skyler and Avery. He was preceded in death by his parents and a half-brother, George “Babe” Ellefsen, Jr.

He will be interred at the Port Blakely Cemetery, with a memorial service to be held at 4 p.m. May 23 at Bethany Lutheran Church, with a “superferry-sized” wake to follow.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made the Bainbridge Island Fire Department. The family’s thanks go to the staff of Harborview and Harrison Medical Centers, who helped Robert stay afloat for his final years. 

An online guestbook is also available via the Tuell-McKee Funeral Home of Bremerton, www.tuellmckeebremerton.com.