Albert "Al" Totin
Marriages
Helen - July 19, 1950
Burial Details
Obituaries
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel page 6 B Death Notice - August 21, 2013
Albert Totin, 84, Grand Junction, died Aug. 17, 2013, at Community
Hospital.
Visitation will be from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday at Callahan-Edfast Mortuary.
A service will be at 11 a.m. Monday at St. Nicholas Greek
Orthodox Church.
Military honors and interment will be at 1 p.m. Monday at Veterans
Memorial Cemetery of Western Colorado.
Mr. Totin was an electrician.
Survivors include his wife, Helen; one son, Albert David Totin of
Grand Junction; two brothers, Pete Totin and Mike Totin, both of
McKeesport, Pa.; and one sister, Helen Totin of McKeesport.
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel page 6B Obituary - August 22, 2013
Albert Totin was born in Port
Vue, Pennsylvania on March 14,
1929, to the delight of his parents,
Wasil and Julia Totin. He grew up
and went to school in the Mc-
Keesport area of Pennsylvania.
Growing up as the youngest boy
with four brothers, George, Russ,
Michael, and Pete and three sisters,
Helen, Marge, and Ann, kept
him busy during his formative
y e a r s . H e l e n a n d A l a l w a y s
seemed to be partners in various
enterprises growing up.
Al entered the Navy on August
18 of 1947, at the Naval Training
Center at Great Lakes, Illinois
where he trained for the submarine
corps. He served as an Electricians
Mate, First Class (SS)
aboard the USS Ray and the USS
Threadfin from march of 1948 to
August 10, 1950, when he was
honorably discharged with a Navy Occupation Service Medal and a
National Defense Good Conduct Medal.
On July 19, 1958, Albert married his sweetheart, Helen, in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania at St. Alexander's Russian Orthodox Church.
Soon afterwards the couple made their way to Fairbanks, Alaska
traveling the Alaska Highway through Canada. Al and Helen soon
adjusted to their new way of life on the new Alaskan frontier and
made a home for themselves in a small residential neighborhood.
After some time to settle in, Al started work on his own log house
which he did most of the work on himself, from digging the foundation
to putting shingles on the roof. When it was finished it w as a
beautiful new home for the family, which now included a baby boy
born in April of 1961. The new family enjoyed the luxury of the
new home after living in a trailer since arrival and purchasing property.
Al loved the outdoors and spent a great deal of his leisure time enjoying
the great hunting and fishing available to him in his new
home of Alaska. He bagged a Dall sheep with a full curl horn, a six
foot black bear with a .357 pistol and many moose and caribou,
enough to fill up his own freezer and also the freezers of many
friends. Al also brought home lots of salmon, trout, whitefish, ling
cod, grayling and halibut to help feed family and friends. Al broke
the state record for Ling Cod with a fish he pulled from the Chena
river near to his home.
The Totin family garden was always one of his great efforts e very
year. Potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, sweet peas, beets, carrots, cucumbers
and tomatoes always came out of the garden at a rate faster
than the family could consume and the neighbors and friends never
went short of fresh vegetables.
Al worked in the electrical trade after entering civilian life and
worked at the international airport in Fairbanks supporting the
facility in a variety of positions and taking care of all the diesel
generators needed for power and backup at the airport. After retiring
from the airport, Al started working with the IBEW electrical
workers union 1547 out of Fairbanks and worked various construction,
pipeline and oil field jobs, many jobs as a foreman. Most
notably the Fairbanks Memorial Hospital Helipad construction,
wiring in the flow monitoring systems by for one of the pumping
stations for the trans-Alaskan pipeline, and many other jobs in
Prudhoe Bay on the north slope of Alaska working for oilfield
construction and maintenance.
Al retired from the union and stayed in Alaska for several more
years after retiring and then began to migrate south in search of
better weather. Al and Helen sold the house and began the journey
which was the reverse of the one they took together 42 years before.
This time they traveled by ferry and enjoyed the view of the glaciers
and wildlife on their trip back to the lower 48. After staying the
winter in Arizona, the couple headed a bit north and ended up in
Grand Junction, Colorado where they decided to make their new
home. Al promptly redid the landscaping and put in a wonderful
flower bed in the front with some evergreen trees and a nice shaped
lawn. In the back he put in two raised beds for vegetables and
another shaped lawn. He also put in two gardening areas in the back
area with a cherry tree and lots of dill and garlic for his home made
pickles.
Al Totin was a great dad, a wonderful husband, beloved brother
and a cherished friend. We all love you and will miss you very much
and hope that you will still smile at us when we do good.
Visitation will be at Callahan-Edfast, 2515 Patterson Road,on
Friday, August 23, from 5 - 7:00 p.m.
Services will be at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, 3585 N.
12th Street, on Monday, August 26, at 11:00 a.m.
Burial with full military honors will follow at the Veteran's
Cemetery at 1:00 p.m.
