Major General Henry Ware Lawton was shot. It was December 19, 1899 in the Philippines. The General was at a forward position, directing American soldiers at the Battle of San Mateo. Also known as the Battle of Paye, during the Philippine-American War, it was Lawton and his troops versus 200 Filipino riflemen under General Licerio Geronimo. Lawton was heading the 1st Division and was a well-respected soldier. He had fought in the Civil War as a Union soldier. He led a force, during the Indian Wards, to capture the illustrious Geronimo, the famed Apache chief. He fought in Cuba during the Spanish American War and was now, at the twilight of the 19th century, in the midst of action in the Philippines, quelling Filipino insurgents. He died on the battle field (the highest ranking American commander to die in the conflict), felled by a sniper’s bullet. His body was returned home and he was interred in Arlington National Cemetery. Months later, in February 1900, War Department General Orders Number 20 named a post high on the bluffs of Seattle’s Magnolia District, Fort Lawton. The fort, 110 years old now, rema ins in his honor.

Ten years before Lawton’s death, Seattle’s economy was struggling. Many of the towns in the area were depressed and city leaders thought a military post might bolster the economy. At the very least, the military would help curb the lawlessness, vagabonds, miscreants and undesirable elements of the burgeoning city. Seattle was competing with Tacoma for the post. Tacoma sought fortifications at Point Defiance. Seattle sought Magnolia. They were to build a coastal defense against the Spanish Navy. Brigadier General Elwell Otis was the one who made the decision, choosing Seattle. It was growing more quickly then Tacoma and the fort would be a good defense for the nearby Naval shipyards in Bremerton. A bill was introduced to the Senate. It passed. The Secretary of War gave 704 acres for its construction.

Surveys were made. Materials were purchased. In June 1898 construction began. Before long, barracks were built, captain’s quarters, quarters for lieutenants and Noncommissioned officers. Bachelor Officer’s Quarters were built, as was a warehouse for the Quartermaster. Wood-framed buildings, the Army took possession of the first completed units the month Lawton fell dead.

In the hot of July, 1901, the first troops arrived. Seattle welcomed 1st Lieutenant Mervyn Buckey and the 32nd Coast Artillery Corps, Company C. The 106th came soon after to man the coast. No coastal weapons, however, were ever installed. The fort remained an infantry post until 1921.

The fort did little for the economy, even less in regards to coastal defense. There were scant buildings and only a few hundred soldiers at the fort at any given time. And still no coastal weapons. During WWI, the troops provided guard duty at the Port of Seattle, little else. During the 1920s and 30s, the Civilian Conservation Corps moved in. They worked on Seattle’s city parks.

During WWII, an inventory of the buildings was done and it was discovered there hadn’t been much change or growth since its original inception. Permanent structures included a rifle range, nine houses, eight barracks, a hospital, stables, headquarters and a handful of temporary structures. Th war, however, brought soldiers. Lots of them. A hive of activity, Fort Lawton became a Port of Embarkation. They processed 793,000 soldiers for embarkation. They processed 618,000 returnees. They shipped 5,000 Italian detainees to Hawaii and the fort became a prisoner-of-war camp for 1,100 German POWs. The port closed as an embarkation station on October 1, 1949.

As Tacoma’s Fort Lewis continued to grow in size and importance, Fort Lawton dwindled. The Korean Conflict gave the fort some activity but slowly the fort lost its military might as buildings became neglected and soldiers were assigned elsewhere. During the 1960s there was the inklings of turning the fort into a park. And so it was. In October 1970 President Richard Nixon signed “the Fort Lawton bill,” opening the way for a park to take over the area.

Discovery Park was born in 1973, 74 years after Lawton died on a battlefield thousands of miles away.

Max Raymond Jensen
10/6/1920 – 5/4/2010

Loving and beloved husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Good friend and favorite customer/client/patient to 100s. Predeceased by his wife of 65 years, Frances A. (Fritz) Jensen, his brother Duane, sister-in-law Rose Jensen, and brother-in-law Milton Moldenhauer. Survived by his three daughters, Linda Odegard, Diane McGovern, and Karen Smith; son-in-law, Warren Odegard; his brother Leon; sisters-in-law Shirley Moldenhauer and Lois Jensen; several grandchildren and great-grandchildren; several cousins; and numerous nieces and nephews.

Max was born in Walla Walla, Washington, to Ellen and Chris Jensen, the oldest of three boys. He graduated from Pomeroy High School in 1938. He took some courses at WSU until he accidentally broke someone’s collarbone while in a wrestling competition and felt so badly he decided to start working instead of completing a college education. He came to Seattle to work at the encouragement of his cousin.

Max and Frances (Fran) met in October 1939, while roller skating (a favorite pastime of theirs) at the Ridge Rink in North Seattle, and married December 22, 1941. When they were dating, Max didn’t like the name Frances, so he told her that she could choose between his calling her Butchie or Stinky (for no apparent reason). Fran didn’t like either choice, but decided Butchie would be the least objectionable, and from then on that is all he called her, and that is how she signed all her cards to him.

Max and Fran cleared a big piece of land and built their home in what is now Shoreline, from the mid- to late-40s (still not quite complete). When Fran designed the home, she was adamant that it would be one level, with easy accessibility to all areas, for when they grew old and maybe needed a wheelchair–they really planned ahead, and it was a good thing!

Max served in the SeaBees in Pt. Barrow, Alaska, during World War II (where he endured an appendectomy without the benefit of anesthetic [they had run out], and where he tested the coldness of an axe blade outdoors, in the middle of winter, with his tongue!). Max was a long-time structural ironworker (Local 86) at Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, in the shipyards in Bremerton, at Boeing, on the TV towers on Queen Anne Hill, the Norton Building and other buildings in Seattle, including at Sand Point Naval Air Station, the I-90 floating bridge, and Scott Paper Mill in Everett, among other things, and was scheduled to work in Iran in the late 1950s (and was thrown a big send-off party) but the trip was canceled at the last minute due to political unrest in Iran. He quit ironworking after about 25 years, much to Fran’s chagrin (no future retirement pay), after he believed he had used up 8 of his 9 lives (several close calls). Max was a photographer and was the only commercial photographer allowed on the grounds of the Seattle World’s Fair and up in the Space Needle when they were under construction (probably because of his ironworking experience, especially walking on unprotected I-beams at great heights), and was one of only two commercial photographers allowed to photograph the Seattle World’s Fair for postcards the other was in California, so Max took the majority of the postcard pictures. He also took pictures for 100s of postcards and brochures of the ever-changing Seattle skyline and the Puget Sound region, as well as the entire Pacific Northwest (see VintageSeattle.org, an excellent, educational, ever-expanding, and just-plain-enjoyable website by Jess Cliffe). Max took numerous pictures, and wrote the accompanying articles, which were featured several times in the Sunday Pictorial section of The Seattle Times. He also took many and varied pictures for View-Master 3-D reels, including the Indy 500. Max was a jeweler and lapidary (learned from his father-in-law) and produced 1000s of pieces of semi-precious stone jewelry, as well as 100s of pieces of beautiful and unique, custom-designed jewelry and other art objects crafted from gold, silver, fossil ivory, jade, petrified wood, etc. He was an artist (oil and watercolor paintings, and collages), and a craftsman (woodworking including woodturning, and the repair and restoration of antique furniture, art objects, and jewelry).

In the mid 70s, Max returned once again to Alaska to help the North American Native Association (NANA) determine how to haul out and process huge jade boulders (some as large as a house) from Jade Mountain, after Max’s determining the best use of the boulders based on their color and quality by examining core samples. He helped design the building for the jade processing operation, and helped design and build the equipment to process the jade. Max helped NANA get their jade business up-and-running, including taking a trip to several countries in the Orient to set up business connections for them there. The jade was made into sculptures (including one approximately 12 x 8 which Max worked on and is in the Federal Building in Alaska), murals, art pieces, and floors for hotels and office buildings around the world, various other art objects, and jewelry. He worked (and lived) at Jade Mountain and Kotzebue for over two years, with occasional visits to his family in Seattle.

Max knew how to do just about everything; if he didn’t know something, he would look it up or figure it out himself. He loved being creative, and if he needed a specific tool for some project and nobody had what he wanted, he would design and build it himself. He loved to learn about anything and everything. He took numerous classes at the local community college and elsewhere over the years, read many books on widely varying subjects, and enjoyed watching educational programs on television (including some cooking shows on PBS in his later years!).

Max loved hiking in the North Cascades (especially the Enchantments). He and Fran loved being on or near the water and took many trips to various beaches around Puget Sound, on the Olympic Peninsula, and down the Pacific Coast (all chronicled by thousands and thousands of pictures taken by both of them — still unsorted).

Max tried hard liquor once, but never again (enough said), and he never drank beer, only wine a couple of times, made by his sister-in-law or Fran’s aunt. Max never lied, cheated, gambled, or smoked, and he tried extremely hard not to swear in front of his wife and three daughters (it was a very infrequent occurrence, but it had quite an impact when he did). His only major vice was sweets, especially See’s candy!

Max was always available to help anyone and everyone with absolutely anything. He would constantly go out of his way to help people, and he was a mentor to many. His quick wit and dry sense of humor endeared him to everyone’s family, a multitude of friends including neighbors, librarians, store clerks, mechanics, bank tellers, fellow artists and jewelers, and many, many doctors and other healthcare workers over the years, as well as his Hospice team, some of whom remembered him from when they were attending to Fran almost four years prior and were very happy to see him again, except for the circumstances. Literally everyone he came into contact with enjoyed him and his humorous, upbeat, and always positive attitude. He was also a great storyteller — he had lots and lots of interesting personal stories to tell anyone who would listen.

Max took amazing 24/7 care of Fran (Butchie), for her final two years when she was very ill. He had told her that was his wish that he would be able to take care of her until the end — which he did. Then his major physical difficulties (after a hip replacement, heart valve replacement [his valve job], and other surgeries), including severe arthritis in his neck and back, congestive heart failure, stage 4 kidney failure, etc., all became worse and worse. But he always had a positive attitude, always very much appreciated the excellent care he and Fran received from their numerous doctors, nurses, Hospice teams, and medics over the years (and always told them so), and he was always telling jokes.

A couple of weeks before Max died he took a fall and was put into a hospital bed at his home, where he remained 24/7 until he died. His daughter Linda and her husband, Warren, (who both moved in with him after his fall), as well as his Hospice team, took excellent care of him, but he was in so much pain after his fall that he made up his mind and was anxious to just “get it over with”. He was on heavy-duty painkillers, but he still was in terrible pain. He had been asking the Hospice nurses if they could give him something to speed up the process (of dying), but they kept explaining that they were there to help ease the pain and make him as comfortable as possible–he was very frustrated. Anyway, a few days before he died, one of the nurses told him that he was getting his wish, that he was dying. Max, always the wiseguy, said, “Do I have to sign a Release?” Of course, everyone cracked up, and he was happy to make people laugh, one last time — a “smart-aleck” to the end!

Max’s life was devoted to creating beautiful things — a loving family, lasting friendships, and unique and varied artistic objects. All of Max’s family and friends will greatly miss this humble, humorous, highly intelligent, honest, honorable, and first-class man.