Resident of Orinda, Bart passed away in the company of his family, October 28.
He was born in Nome, Alaska, January 4, 1919, where his father was a merchant. When he was seven, his family moved to Berkeley, California where his father owned a grocery store on Derby Street and his mother was an active member of the Alaskan Yukon Sourdough Association. He grew up in Berkeley and Oakland, graduating from Oakland High School in 1937. While attending Oakland High, he joined the National Guard serving from 1935-1937 in the 159th Infantry. Following high school, Bart attended San Francisco Junior College, after which he went to Nome to work for the Department of the Interior. He worked in 1939 as a mechanic on an old narrow gauge railroad, which ran from Nome, seventy-eight miles into the Kugarat. He told stories of getting off the train, before it crossed trestles near Nome, just in case it wouldn't make it across. He said that sometimes they would come around a turn and the tundra would have sunk under the tracks causing their speeder to shoot off the tracks! He and three others would then manually jack it back up on the track. He also worked in Coer d'Alene, Idaho, driving a bulldozer for a gold dredging company, but the call of Nome beckoned, so he returned. He was an Alaskan at heart! Upon his return to California, Bart attended San Francisco State for a year, after which he went to work for the Pacific Telephone Company.
With the onset of WWII, Bart joined the Navy in 1942. The following year he met the love of his life, Barbara Lutz. Following their marriage in 1943, Bart was shipped to Samar Island in the Philippines where he worked on plane engines and attained the rank of Chief Petty Officer. After leaving the Navy, Bart managed the meat department at Phairs, in Orinda, owned by his sister and brother-in-law, Ewart and Virginia Phair. In 1947 he began building his Orinda home of sixty-one years. In 1947 he also returned to work for the Pacific Telephone Company where he had started earlier in his life as a lineman in Nevada and Northern California. He finished his career as the manager of the motor vehicle department for Marin County, San Francisco, and the Peninsula retiring after 35 years there.
It was then that his love of flying, having taken root in Samar, was fulfilled. He got his private pilot's license and flew for years. A master mechanic by trade and hobby, Bart built several automobiles over the years including a beloved family project, his 1929 Model A Roadster. He also applied his mechanical skills to keeping the plumbing running for years at the Orinda Park Pool and became Mr. Fixit for the Household Department at the Oakland Museum's annual White Elephant Sale, where he was a volunteer for over thirty years.
Bart is survived by his three children and their spouses, Lisa Neville Atkins, his son-in-law, Turner Atkins; son, Bart Van Sickle, daughter-in-law, Eileen Van Sickle; Linda Brickley, son-in-law, Thomas Brickley; and his grandchildren, Justin and Keely Neville; Alyssa Van Sickle; her brother, Josh Bordelon; Juliette Brickley, and Jessica Brickley Kuipers.
Bart, a quiet, strong, loving husband and father, helped his wife recover from a near fatal case of polio she had contracted at the age of twenty-one. He also helped all of his children build or maintain their houses and cars. He loved planes, flying, cars, The White Elephant Sale, the Orinda Park Pool, Oakland and Orinda, his long time friends, past and present; but most of all, he loved his family. He could fix anything except his own heart which finally wore out on October 28th. His passing has left a hole in our universe. Fly on Dad! There will be a celebration of his life on December 6, for family and friends, at the home of his daughter, Lisa Neville Atkins and Turner Atkins, at 138 Sunnyside Ave., Piedmont, from 2-6 p.m. Memorial donations may be made to The March of Dimes.
