He and his first wife, Helen, divorced, and Reeder remarried and moved to Hawaii with his second wife, Carol, who was originally from Kodiak. Life back in California included his growing family, which expanded to four sons - William Jr., Gregory, Wes and Don - and working as an executive salesman at LD Reeder Co., the family construction and acoustic-ceiling tile business. He ended up heading to combat duty in World War II as an enlisted Aviation Radioman 3rd Class, serving on the USS Bon Homme Richard aircraft carrier in the Pacific, being honorably discharged in 1946. “All was going gangbusters until he met a young lady who lived a short ways away in Glendale, California - my mother - and his studies suffered, his grades fell, and he did not finish the program at Cal Tech, nor did he get commissioned as an officer in the Navy,” Reeder Jr. Navy in 1942, was recruited for officer training and sent to Cal Tech University. The patents were sold by a descendent without ever making the family much money, but Reeder was rich in inheriting his granddad’s scientific curiosity and engineering-oriented intellect.Īfter graduating from Coachella Valley Union High School in Thermal in 1941 and attending a year of college, he enlisted in the U.S. Reeder’s grandfather was a shop teacher and hobbyist inventor, filing patents on an early version of a convertible car top and a pop-up camper.
His father died when Reeder, born April 30, 1923, was a baby, the victim of an accidental gun discharge at the restaurant he and his wife ran in Los Angeles. He was familiar with small-town life, having grown up with his maternal grandparents in the sparsely populated town of Thermal in the California desert. The elder Reeder could easily imagine making his home here. Whoever would have thought we’d have a Fred Meyer and all these fast food places? It’s just unimaginable.” It has grown and exploded in the years since then. There was the 4 Royle Parkers restaurant and bar, the old post office, a small grocery store, “Maybe two gas stations, maybe four or five other bars besides Parkers, and that was pretty much Soldotna except for a few houses.
#REEDER CONSTRUCTION TV#
“I remember the town of Soldotna being much more like the town in (the 1990s TV show) ‘Northern Exposure’ than what we see today,” he said. The difficulty is in believing how it’s grown. came to visit a few years after his dad moved to town in 1966, and has no trouble recalling what was here at the time.
It was love at first sight for Reeder and Soldotna, although there was significantly less to see in those days. He didn’t just sit back and take a backseat. “He’d put in the time to make things better. I think that’s a legacy that I know I admired, and I’m sure everybody else who knew Bill admired about him,” said Dorothy Gray, longtime friend. He really took a lot of his own personal time to help out other people. “His involvement with civic organizations and the veterans and senior center was impressive. It was so important to him, he just loved this town,” said Rosie Reeder, his wife of 33 years. “He never wanted praise or thanks, he just wanted the right thing to happen. In that, his love of family and community could have reverberated off the rooftops - the handful that were here in the 1960s to the much-denser count today. Being as conservative in conversation as he was copious of character, what Reeder said, he meant, but it was through action that he made his loudest statements. Or, better yet, that they do something to demonstrate that respect. If Reeder could have his way, he’d probably rather that they pay their respects to Soldotna, the community he lived in and loved for more than 45 years. And there was nothing he enjoyed more than being surrounded by family and friends.īut not being the center of attention. The gathering - first at Soldotna Memorial Park Cemetery, next to the Veterans Memorial, then at the Soldotna Senior Center - would meet with Reeder’s approval, especially given his work to support those places. When friends and family come together for Bill Reeder’s memorial in Soldotna on Sunday, they will have 90 years worth of stories, tributes and loving memories of the former Soldotna mayor to share. Veteran and former Soldotna Mayor Bill Reeder died Oct.
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