Edward E. Junkert

Longtime Missoula homebuilder Edward E. Junkert – who was an integral member of the local post-war housing boom of the 1950s and 1960s – died July 23, 2013, of natural causes at Community Medical Center. He was 93. Born to German immigrants, Philip and Pauline Junkert, in Hebron, N.D., he moved with his parents and sister, Lydia, to Missoula in 1921, where he attended Missoula schools through his graduation from Missoula County High School in 1938.

Taught by his father, who was a finish carpenter by trade, Ed worked during his teen years as a carpenter's apprentice, draftsman, a house painter and later at Morin Lumber Co.

With 1930s America focused upon the invasion of Europe by Hitler's forces, Junkert – politically influenced by his grandfather Henry Hirning – combined an early love of flying with a preparedness for military duty. Six months after turning 21, Ed was the seventh American whose draft number was drawn from a fish bowl in the nation's first pre-WWII lottery of July 8, 1941. Shortly thereafter, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and headed for training at Biloxi, Miss., where he learned propeller tuning and balancing for the B-24 Mitchell Liberator. Ed served the next four years in the 44th Bombardment Group of the 8th Air Force at Shipdam Air Base near Norwich, England, and in London working at DeHaviland Aircraft Co.

Upon discharge from military service in 1945 and his return to Missoula, Ed courted a young secretary, Esther Steinert. The couple was married in 1947 and raised four children.

Over the next 35 years, Ed pursued several business ventures in the Missoula building trade. In the early 1950s, independent Missoula contractors would obtain a bank loan, singlehandedly build a house (often while the family lived in the basement of the house), sell it, pay off the bank loan, and start the process again. After the sixth such move with his young family, Ed started a building materials operation and pre-fab metal outbuilding service called Timberib in 1953, which he operated for several years before accepting employment in 1957 as job foreman and designer for one of Missoula's first large house-construction firms, Curran Construction. It was while he worked with Curran that Ed – fresh with new ideas from a national builder's conference in Chicago – was one of the first local builders to implement "modern" construction innovations such as reusable pre-fab concrete forms, pre-fab roof trusses, laminated plywood for floor and exterior sheathing, and insulated fiberboard for exterior wall sheathing.

After departing Curran Co., he started another independent venture, Garden City Excavating, with partner Harvey Schmautz. A significant accomplishment with Garden City was Ed's design and his company's renovation of the Lolo Hot Springs Resort swimming pool, bath house and lodge.

As an independent designer-draftsman, Ed contracted numerous home design and small-business design jobs, one which earned him award recognition for his design of Don Tripp's Truck Stop in Lolo.

In 1969, the family moved to Tacoma, Wash., where Ed assumed a designer-manager position with Continental Homes in Renton, Wash. In 1971, they moved back to Missoula, where he took another fling as an independent contractor before his retirement in 1984. During his career, Ed independently built

70 houses and designed

17 commercial buildings, as well as working with Curran and Continental.

An interesting social component of the independent Missoula construction industry was the manner in which jobs and deals were negotiated – usually over a morning cup of joe at one of several popular contractors' quick-stop cafes. Ed had two favorites: Bugs' Barbecue and Paul's Pancake Parlor. Another favorite in Spanaway, Wash., was the Wagon Wheel Cafe. The venue occasionally changed over the years, but not the social connection and – up until the final week of Ed's life, and driving himself there in his '94 Olds, he could be found at his coffee clatch – Sunday mornings at Lucky Strike Casino, Monday mornings at the airport terminal cafe and other weekdays at Ruby's Cafe.

One of Ed's pet peeves was his enduring frustration at the growing gridlock of Missoula's streets. So, he turned it into a hobby, and spent countless hours in the 1970s and '80s imagining and then drawing his proposed street plan to alleviate traffic congestion, including his own solution for the intersection known as Malfunction Junction.

Despite his dedication to the building industry, Ed often expressed regret at leaving his "true" calling – the USAF flight industry. His love of flight had started at age 10, when he won a drawing for a free flight over Missoula in a Ford Trimotor.

A highlight of his later years was a 1998 return trip to Norwich and Shipdam, England, where he returned to his military roots with a visit and tour of the remnants of the 44th Bombardment Group airbase. During his brief return to Norwich, Ed engaged in several emotional conversations at local pubs with Norwich citizens who remembered the war and the American servicemen who served. One resident volunteered to drive Ed around the area to revisit landmarks. Ed later made two more trips to London, then in his 80s.

Junkert was always a tinkerer and a designer. He custom built an elaborate construction utility trailer that he could erect as an on-site shop, complete with powered miter saws and numerous drawers for tool and fastener storage. He loved working on automobiles and renovated many vehicles with his younger sons, Earl and Ernie. A crowning achievement was his from-scratch construction of a three-wheeled automobile, called the Trimuter, which he constructed from plans in a Popular Mechanics magazine, and which is displayed today in the the Lemay Family Car Museum in Tacoma.

Stock car racing at the Miller Creek race track, and music of the 1940s were two additional hobbies Ed enjoyed. One day in 1958, Ed surprised the family when he brought home an enormous Zenith console Hi-Fi, replete with two gigantic RCA speakers ... forever imprinting his eldest son with a lifelong passion for recorded music.

Ed's heritage was of two large German families – Junkert and Hirning – which immigrated from Russia's Black Sea region to North Dakota and then on to Montana. With his marriage to Esther, he joined two more large German families – the Wornaths and Steinerts. Each extended family was important to Ed and Esther, and they attended nearly every family reunion they could, developing a detailed and extensive family history, including photos and folders full of typed notes. Several of Ed's photos have appeared in the Missoulian's "The Way We Were" section.

In his last decade, he turned his drafting skills into yet another hobby: architectural and landscape pencil drawings. He spent many Saturdays as a vendor, selling his work at Missoula's downtown market.

Junkert is survived by his four children, Glenn (Carol) of Missoula, Treecia (Don) of Salem, Ore., Earl of McMinnville, Ore., and Ernie (Cynthia) of Tacoma, Wash.; six grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

A memorial will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 24, at the Museum of Mountain Flying at the Missoula International Airport. After a brief service, friends and family can share memories, view family photo albums and enjoy refreshments. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Museum of Mountain Flying.

Read Edward Junkert's Obituary and Guestbook on www.missoulafuneralhomes.com.