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Chidester mentored scouts
A memorial service Wednesday will honor the 93-year-old’s work with the youth group.
A memorial service will be held next week for Tucson resident Otis H. Chidester, the country’s senior, continuously registered and active member of the Boy Scouts.
He died at age 93 Saturday of complications from a broken hip.
Mr. Chidester became a Boy Scout Sept. 8, 1912, going on to help thousands of young people understand the Boy Scout Oath.
It reads:
On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country, to obey the Scout law, to help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.
Friends said yesterday he gave a lifetime of living every word of the promise Scouts make when they are admitted to the organization.
”I knew him when I was a little boy,” said Dr. James Klein, who grew up as a scout and is president of The Otis H. Chidester Scout Museum of Southern Arizona.
”It’s hard to imagine how future generations will understand a man like this walked the face of the earth,” Klein said ” He was a mentor, a guide, a role model and friend to all he knew.
”He was like a second father to me. Losing him was like having a death in my own family. He was always trying to help. He was never critical; he just encouraged you.”
Mr. Chidester became an Eagle Scout in 1935, received the Silver Beaver Award in 1948 and was named Distinguished Eagle Scout in 1993.
For 18 years he was director of the Scout camp in the Catalinas. His wife, Martha, was camp nurse.
He served the Catalina Council of Boy Scouts of America as historian for 34 years. When he died, he was nearly done with revising his book about Scouting in southern Arizona.
Klein said he and other members of the museum will complete the work.
Mr. Chidester was born in Mineral City, Ohio and grew up in Pennsylvania. He and Martha moved to Tucson in 1934. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Arizona.
He taught at the Arizona School for the Deaf and the Blind from 1937 through 1940. Later in 1940, he founded the Graphic Arts Department at Tucson High and served there as department chairman until 1968.
”Otis never had children. He always regarded his boy scouts and his school children as his children,” Klein said.
He was inducted into the Tucson High Hall of Fame in 1992.
He also was a Mason for 72 years.
His wife preceded him in death.
The service is set for 7 p.m. Wednesday at Catalina Methodist Church, 2600 E. Speedway Blvd. Remembrances may be sent to the museum at 1937 E. Blacklidge Drive, Tucson, Ariz. 85716.
(Dated Feb 27, 1997)
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Bill Breck built Dodge dealership
Auto dealer William D. ”Bill” Breck, whose Dodge dealership grew from a tiny house trailer to 10 acres on East 22nd Street, has died at 79.
Mr. Breck died of natural causes and his body was found in his home yesterday, family members said.
In 1993, Mr. Breck retired after 40 years as an automotive dealer and turned Bill Breck Dodge over to his son, Dan.
Mr. Breck arrived in Tucson in 1951 and started his first business – a small car lot – at North Sixth Avenue and Pennington Street.
In 1959, Mr. Breck opened his Dodge dealership at East Speedway Boulevard and North Country Club Road and operated out of a house trailer.
He moved the company to its present location, 4220 E. 22nd St., in 1972.
Mr. Breck was born in Billings, Mont., and battled his way through the Great Depression of the 1930s as a salesman peddling Heinz 57 Varieties products from one end of Montana to the other.
He met his wife-to-be, Alice, who died three years ago, in 1939 and served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. He was a gunnery instructor.
”He was deeply in love with my mom,” Dan Breck said today. ”We just feel he’s in a better place now.
”He’s back with my mom.”
In 1946, Mr. Breck opened a storage company in Bozeman, Mont., and started W.D. Breck Motor Sales.
His early jobs honed his salesmanship, he told the Tucson Citizen in a 1986 interview.
That year, he was named grand marshal of the 61st La Fiesta de los Vaqueros.
”It was one of the grandest things that’s ever happened to me,” Mr. Breck said at the time.
Bill Breck Dodge, with more than 130 workers, won Dodge’s large-dealer Consumer Service Index award in 1987.
The award was based on the responses of customers contacted by the factory and asked to report how their dealer treated them.
He said car dealers owed the community something.
”It hasn’t been that many years (since) a franchise was a franchise for a purpose,” Mr. Breck said in a 1987 interview. ”They (the manufacturer) expected you to be the representative for their product and that product only. You were obliged to be responsible to the community, involved.”
Deregulation of the industry changed that. Manufacturers no longer had to tell dealers which business organizations they must join. And dealers sold up to five different makes under one roof.
But Mr. Breck said the institution, like real estate, was still unique.
”It’s the last place where you can haggle,” he said. ”It’s the last of our good old horse trading in America.”
Cars taught young people how to save, Mr. Breck said. He matched his grandchildren’s savings so they could buy cars when they were old enough – not just Dodges, either.
”Owning a car,” he said, ”is the American Dream, isn’t it?”
”He really liked Tucson. He put a lot back into the community – a lot of it anonymously,” Dan Breck said.
”He was a great fisherman (and) outdoor guy. He grew up fishing and hunting,” the son added.
Mr. Breck belonged to many community groups, including the Tucson Conquistadors, the YMCA, the Tucson Airport Authority and the Tucson Rodeo Parade Committee.
Mr. Breck is survived by sons Dan and Joseph; daughter Carolyn; nine grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held Saturday at 1 p.m. at Catalina Methodist Church, 2700 E. Speedway Blvd. Burial will follow at East Lawn Palms Mortuary & Cemetery on East Grant Road.
(Dated Mar 04, 1997)
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Centenarian Christine Sorensen
She came to this country from Denmark when she was 15 and became a nurse, wife and mother.
Christine Sorensen, one of Tucson’s oldest residents, who loved to tell her children and grandchildren stories of her early days in Denmark, has died at age 107.
”It was fascinating to hear her talk about what it was like to be a child in Denmark. When she came here, she couldn’t speak a word of English,” said her daughter, Gladys Sorensen of Tucson.
Mrs. Sorensen died Monday.
She left Denmark – and her parents – at age 15 to join brothers living in the United States. Eventually, six of the family of 12 children would live here, with the others remaining in Denmark.
The young immigrant lived in Wisconsin. She returned to Denmark for a year at age 20, helping to care for her mother, who was ill. She came back to the United States and entered college, where she trained to become a registered nurse.
She married and moved to Nebraska, where she spent several decades. In 1961, when her husband died, she moved to Tucson to live with her daughter.
Here, she devoted her time to several hobbies, such as knitting and crocheting and making silver jewelry. She also worked in her garden until ill health precluded that about a year ago.
During the era when women wore hats, she was involved in designing and making hats and sewing women’s clothing.
Gladys Sorensen said her mother used her Danish Bible and an English Bible to help her learn English.
Though she kept up a steady correspondence with siblings and other relatives in Denmark, she did not visit the country again until she and Gladys Sorensen took a trip there in 1964.
”She had maintained the language,” her daughter said. ”She could talk with them just as if she had never left.”
Survivors, in addition to her daughter here, include another daughter, Jane Pinckert of Apache Junction; a son, Vale Sorensen of Omaha, Neb.; six grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.
Memorial services are scheduled at 4 p.m. tomorrow at St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church, 3809 E. Third St. Graveside services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at East Resthaven Cemetery in Phoenix.
The family suggests contributions be sent to the Christine Heide Sorensen Scholarship Fund, University of Nebraska Foundation, 8712 W. Dodge St., Suite 402, Omaha, Neb. 68114.
Adair Funeral Home handled local funeral arrangements.
(Dated Mar 06, 1997)
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