Fredric Gordon Deines

Plan and attack the day. So begins the last journal entry of Fredric Gordon Deines on May 11, 2026, words written again and again by a man who for eighty years launched himself out of bed before sunrise and charged at the world like a bull moose, much like his hero Teddy Roosevelt.

Born to loving parents Dean Arthur and Agnes Annette (nee Hansen) Deines in Omaha, Nebraska, on October 1, 1945, Fred had a way of making an impression—and not just because he was full-bearded and sometimes referred to himself as Hagar the Horrible after the comic strip. Or because he could tell you true stories about getting lost at sea and swimming in the caldera of a volcano. But because he was genuine and good-natured and generous—the kind of man who couldn’t wait to give you a gift or who would happily help you build a new deck for your home as long as you agreed to use ample bolts and screws. He had strong opinions about fasteners and appreciated things that were built to last, including friendships. Paint, in his view, had no business concealing a natural wood grain, and in the same way he respected people for who they were.

Fred grew up near 72nd and Dodge in Omaha, close to where the city surrendered to farmland and a boy could still get his knees dirty. He remembered both when his parents had to sell their home due to hardship and how proud they were to buy a new one. After graduating from Westside High, he began to study billiards in the Student Union while dating Ellen, who would later come to accept shotguns as Mother’s Day gifts despite never developing a taste for hunting herself. He then volunteered to serve his country and won her hand while on leave from Vietnam, returning for a second tour just in time to survive ninety days of shelling as an aviation ordnance man on the Da Nang Airfield during the Tet Offensive with Marine Composite Squadron One of the First Marine Aircraft Wing.

Maybe that’s when he started to hold up two crossed fingers and say aloud, “You and me, God, just like this—Yes? Yes!” Or maybe that was after he was almost lost at sea—not the first time, but the second, when Ellen, now his wife and watching from the shore, spotted his rudderless Zodiac disappearing over the horizon. In any case, he put the GI Bill to good use and followed his love of animals to attain a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Biology from Colorado State University.

So began the era when Fred traveled with a “DAS kit” (dead animal skull kit) and earned a reputation for boiling bones in relatives’ homes, starting the first of many collections, including not only skulls, but tools, fine crystal, baseball caps, guns and knives, old books, big game trophies, hand-carved Norwegian trolls, and fallen songbirds he’d pull from the freezer to have you feel the softness of their feathers.

In his first post-college jobs, he worked in ecological services with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Omaha and Grand Island, Nebraska. With two small daughters in tow, he and Ellen then headed north to Alaska. Not for gold or oil, but for natural resource management, as Fred pursued his career at the Alaska Maritime and Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuges. These were the years when he amassed a wardrobe of Gore-Tex and began to resemble an Early Winters advertisement, helped reintroduce the endangered Aleutian Canada Goose, and inspired numerous young naturalists through his dedication and enthusiasm in the field. He also welcomed a son into the world and accumulated a few more stories. Like the one about standing atop two tussocks and roaring to scare off an Alaskan brown bear, or rappelling down a cliff for the first time on a moonless night on Kasatochi Island in the Aleutians, almost getting his hand bit off by an angry puffin and hunting for Dall sheep on a glacier.

Fred also brought his love of nature into the home. Scarface (the Dall sheep from the glacier) hangs in his living room and Ellen often hung the family’s ironing from caribou antlers. His kids were taught to band birds and count them using a dot-square tally. He took them skiing at night and on full-moon walks and named sunsets after them. His “bear hugs” were legendary and his support unwavering.

In his retirement, Fred built a home in Highland, Wisconsin, where he enjoyed managing his own land, driving a tractor, hunting, and spending far too much money on bird seed and suet for his “feathered piglets.” During these more quiet years, he also journeyed inward, finding the courage to accept he’d returned from Vietnam with PTSD and seeking help through counseling. Then, for the first time, he began to tell stories about bombs that melted into twisted flowers before his eyes and what it’s like to be thrown thirty feet over the top of a bunker. Maybe that’s why he could pick himself up again and again after yet another surgery—and why he could plan and attack his days to the very last. “Pshaw,” he’d say. “Don’t forget, I’m a former Marine!”

Now on another adventure in the great above, where surely he’s drinking aquavit (“the water of life”) with a host of angels and regaling them with a good tale, Fred will be forever remembered by his family for his extraordinary love and devotion. He was preceded in death by his parents and his brother Dean, and is survived by his wife Ellen (nee Dahlquist) Deines, with whom he celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary in February of this year, daughters Kahrin (Michael) DiGioia and Alison (Sam) Sehnert, son Nickolas (Megan) Deines, and grandchildren Hadley, Seppi, Nora, Stanley, Joseph and Charlee, as well as many other family and friends, the songbirds of Southwest Wisconsin, the dog and that damn cat.

In lieu of gifts, the family suggests a donation to a veterans’ organization. They would also like to thank the staff at Upland Hills Health Hospice for their compassionate and exceptional care.