ELKINS, Dan Garrison

Dan Garrison Elkins, 84, a former longtime Haines resident, died of a stroke on May 10, 2001, at Yakima, Wash., where he had moved to be near his family. There will be a family gathering at his favorite fishing hole near Haines on June 16. His ashes will be returned to the Earth as he requested. Mr. Elkins was born on April 27, 1917, at Plainview, Texas, to Arthur Thomas and Ethel Bowman Elkins. He spent his younger years moving between Texas, California and Arizona where he developed a love for the desert and a taste for jackrabbit stew. He loved traveling and had many interesting jobs along the way, including working in the lettuce sheds, loading railroad cars with gravel in Montana, roofing buildings for the 1939 Treasure Island Worlds Fair in San Francisco, mining for gold and building a water reservoir in Arizona while in the Civilian Conservation Corps. While serving in the Army Signal Corps during World War II, his tour of duty took him to Australia, New Guinea, Japan and the Philippines. After his honorable discharge, he worked for Western Asbestos and then earned his private pilots license. He used a plane to round up wild horses. He and the horses decided that he might make a better farmer, so he bought a 40-acre ranch in Nevada and joined the Carpenters Union, which eventually took him to Oregon. He met his future wife, Diane Hazelbaker Weeks, when he hired her and her boys to harvest a hay crop. They were married on Dec. 29, 1966, at Reno, Nev., and made their home at Haines. He worked on the construction of Hells Canyon Dam and Interstate 84 between Baker City and La Grande. He became Dad to the first of 42 foster children. In addition to his devotion to his family, he enjoyed hunting, fishing and being outdoors. To touch so many lives takes a special man and he is deeply missed, his family said. Survivors include his wife, Diane, of Yakima, Wash.; daughters, Donna Davis of Medford, Dawna and her husband, Jerry Glenn, of Yakima, Wash., and Barbie Heilman of Baker City; sons, Steven Weeks of Kooskia, Idaho, and Larry Weeks and his wife, Dee, of Lewiston, Idaho; sisters, Jimmie Ruth McCrae and his special twin sister, Beth Sample, both of California; and numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his brothers, Charlie and Thomas; and sisters, Stella and Edith. bakercityherald.com 18 May 2001