John Saxton Hagnas

John Saxton Hagnas was born February 4, 1928 in Astoria, Oregon, and passed away Thursday, March 21, 2013, in Portland, Oregon. His parents were Axel Danielsson Hagnas and Grace Vivian Whiteley-Hagnas.

Growing up, John spent time whittling model airplanes out of wood and painting them to replicate actual planes. They were so realistic he was asked to construct them for the military to use for target practice. He also did civilian defense spotting during World War II. As a young man, he worked many different jobs in town from Engebretson’s Seed Company to several local canneries and recalled taking lunch breaks leaning against the old boiler still visible in the river behind Stephanie’s Cabin Restaurant. He graduated from Astoria High School in 1945.

After high school, he was a champion flat-track motorcycle racer for Broadway Motorcycle Company in Portland, racing up and down the coast while also working as an electrical apprentice. He enlisted in the US Army in March 1952 to March 1954, where he was a corporal in the 508th Regimental Airborne Combat Team and later shipped to England and attached to the 39th AAA Headquarters Battalion and earned the National Defense Service Medal.

After the army, he worked for Van Fleet Logging and also helped to preserve liberty ships at Tongue Point Naval Station. In March 1955, he became a firefighter for the Astoria Fire Department. At this time he also began to court the red-haired secretary at Astoria Stationary Company, Violet Eklund. The two were married on May 26, 1956, at Trinity Lutheran Church in Astoria. He graduated from Clatsop Community College in 1976 with an associate’s in Fire Service Technology and retired from the Astoria Fire Department in 1985.

John was an avid bow hunter and competitive archer where he won many awards in field archery tournaments as well as coached others who went on to become state champion archers. John and Violet camped and bow hunted all over the state, motorcycling deep into the backwoods of Oregon, and continued to do so even after their two children were born. Every summer for several weeks the Hagnas family would camp in their little trailer high in the Elkhorn mountains outside Sumpter, Oregon, and hunt, fish, hike, explore, gold-pan, motorcycle, and play. John and Violet continued to do so until only a few years ago.

In the early 1980s, John picked up the art of scrimshaw and taught himself to scrim any and everything from small necklaces and pendants to elaborate forest scenes etched into full-size elk horns. In retirement this became a full-time hobby, and he has sold pieces that have ended up all over the world. Other hobbies included CB radio, morse code, photography, guitar playing, and sturgeon and salmon fishing.

In later life, John enjoyed his involvement in the Astor Lodge Swedish Vasa Order of America and serving Swedish pea soup and meatballs at the Astoria Scandinavian Midsummer Festival. He also belonged to the First Lutheran Church, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the American Legion.

John’s health had declined in the last 6 years due to hydrocephalus and was placed under the care of Gracelen Terrace Care Facility in Portland in February of 2011, where he received excellent care by the wonderful staff. He fought a valiant fight through to his final day.

https://www.caldwellsmortuary.com/obituary/2036040

John was an active and larger-than-life man who was a devoted husband to the love of his life, Violet, until the very end. He was a loving and playful father, an incorrigible trickster, and a devoted friend to many. He lamented not being able to be as active with his grandchildren as he could have been earlier in life, but he enjoyed their spiritedness and their company.