Former Homer resident Gordon Anthony Stoddard, 82, died Feb. 5, 2006, at the Veterans Administration hospital in Menlo Park, Calif. He spent the last year of his life in an apartment in San Rafael, Calif., with a cat named Susie. A VFW military burial in the Hickerson Memorial Cemetery is planned for the near future.

Gordon was born Jan. 17, 1924, in Berkley, Calif., to Myrtle Rolph Stoddard and Harry Leroy Stoddard. He had an older brother, Rolph, and an older sister, Shirley, who predeceased him. He graduated from Carmel High School and attended the University of California Davis.

Gordon enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served in the South Pacific during World War II. His ship was involved in many battles from the Philippines to Okinawa. He survived the sinking of his ship when it collided with another ship during a typhoon.

Gordon moved to Alaska after the war when he was 25 and he decided to homestead on the Kenai Peninsula. He selected a homestead near Oyster Point on Cook Inlet. He cleared the land and used the logs to build four cabins. He spent summers working construction, and lived off the land, hunting game, growing vegetables and picking wild berries. After several years of this, he started a greenhouse business and grew produce to sell all year around. A fire destroyed his greenhouse and a few thousand tomato plants, and he went back to working construction.

His sister, Shirlie, encouraged him to write about his homesteading experience in Alaska. Shirlie found a publisher, and his book, “Go North, Young Man,” was published in 1957. Gordon’s family was in Carmel, Calif., and he frequently returned there in the winter, where he belonged to a ski club and enjoyed skiing in the Sierras. Alaska called him back, and he returned to work building bridges, schools, navy bases and on the Trans Alaska Pipeline project. He enjoyed fishing and having parties with his neighbors.

In 1994 he sold his homestead and moved to Brookings, Ore. He stayed there with his dogs, Buddy and Susie. He moved back to Homer in 2002. In October 2004 he moved to San Rafael to be closer with his family.

Gordon is survived by his niece and her husband, Pam and Mel DeWeerd; niece Dee Stoddard; nephew and his wife Kirk and Sue Stoddard; great nephew Scott Stoddard; great niece Cori McClaughry and great niece and her husband Wendy and Daryl Blymeyer; and good friend Sandra Dakota, his caretaker for the past year.