Controlling Interest

The

Bremerton, Wash.

Special Section

May, 1987

The Bremer story: [CONTROLLING INTEREST] a city's struggle ｙａｍｾ Ｚ ｾ

26 1987

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Edward Bremer gave up on life last July, dying alone, Powerless and frustrated, a captive of his own wealth and a victim of a world he no longer could control.

The lone survivor of one of Puget Sound's early power families lived out his life in a Seattle apartment furnished with items scrounged from Goodwill or Salvation Army stores.

As the last heir of the man who owned Bremerton, he was worth more than $10 million. Yet he dined for years on TV dinners and in the end had little access to his oWn money.

The Kitsap County land baron, whose tombstone now rests within yards of Seattle legends named Denny, Yesler and Nordstrom, lived his last days on a food and expense allowance of $360 a month.

Those are a few of the multitude of ironies surrounding the man most responsible for making the city bearing his name what it is today. Revealed in recent weeks by the handful of people who knew him intimately during his final years, the picture of the dying Bremer caps a compelling story that until his death could not be told.

For seven years, the silence of Bremer and those who knew him left the dying recluse separated from his one-time home by a small sea of water and a vast ocean of confusion and misunderstanding.

Bremer had been the crown prince of a family coming closer than any local clan to earning the title "royalty." He grew up in a make-believe world of unchallenged personal and financial power.

For most of his life, Ed Bremer had it all. His solitary mission was to hang onto it.

But his life outlasted hie; ability to control his own world. and Bremer died with great personal pain.

Tbe Ed Bremer story became a sad tale when he left Bremerton in 1900, never to return to the city he loved.

It became a tragedy when Bremer lost his long-held grip on all that he was by unwittingly signing away control of his life and empire to people some say he neither liked nor trusted.

The last chapter of his story - and much of the hiBtory behind it - has long been sealed from the public eye. Bremer was a private man. Close friends who saw the tragedy unfolding did not speak of it in deference to the man's reclusive nature, which often bordered on obsessive.

But Bremer was laid to rest nearly eight months ago.

People talk about him now - most with it hint of sadness and a touch of perplexed frustration.

Former business associates tell of Bremer's love and total devotion to downtown Bremerton - an attachment so heartfelt that it contributed to, and perhaps even caused, the city's decay to its current antiquated state. They tell of Bremer's yearning to improve his namesake and of his frustration at his inability to do so.

Old friends tell of a man beset by a long series of personal tragedies, beginning with the mysterious death of Bremer's father in 1910, continuing in 1952 with the sudden death of the woman he loved, and ending with a long convalescence during which Bremer was left to reflect upon it all.

Friends also tell of a domineering mother who/>e intense reaction to the death of her husband shaped the future of the Bremer family, and thus the city it controlled.

But the most compelling testimony comes from those who knew Bremer intimately during his last five years - full-time personal nurses whom he came to depend on for medical care and companionship.

They tell of a man who fell victim to his own stubbornness and to a new generation of business managers who impatiently awaited his death.

They tell of their anger at the current managers of Bremer's property, who they say never slowed down long enough to realize the control they seized may have been the only thing keeping Ed Bremer alive.

They tell of Bremer's desires for his inheritance, and how they differ from its current disposition.

All of them agree that what happened to Bremer and Bremerton could have been avoided in a perfect world. But a perfect world is not shaped by personalities, emotions and greed.

All of them agree that Ed Bremer and his city were far from perfect, and that the mistakes of both can serve as a lesson. ' Most of them agree that his story should be told.

It begins on the next page.

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1978: Business Manager Merlin Frohardt and Ed Bremer tour the town.

Page 2

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The Sun

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The Bremers:

It was their kind of town

By Ron Judd Sun Staff Writer

It is a wann July day in downtown Seattle, and Ed Bremer is dying.

Lying on a hospital bed in the living room of a modest sixth-floor apartment, he is talking - perhaps to his personal nurse, perhaps to no one at all.

Bremer and the nurse know the old man has little life left. So it seems odd to the nurse that Bremer's last, difficult wordsseem to come from a time that no longer exists.

"Buildings need to be checked. Have to go across town. I have to call Mother. She'H be worried."

In his final days, Bremer's mind has fled a decaying body, returning to its' sweetest memory: Bremerton in its heyday.

In Bremerton's finest hour, Sophia Bremer and her children are riding the crest of a wave of prosperity that began to roll in 1900 and would not crash for nearly eight decades.

It is Friday morning - any Friday morning between 1940 and the mid-l950s and Bremerton resident Joy Stokes remembers it like it was yesterday.

Friday mornings are special at the Bremer Estate office where Mrs. Stokes, (then Joy JusteseQ) works as a personal secretary to a strapping young Ed Bremer, the local eyes, ears and hands of the Seattle-based I , family that owned a city.

Bremer, dark-h.aired and haphazardly dressed in clothes not befitting a man of his wealth (or a man of his size, for that matter) climbs the stairs in the downtown Eagles Building and shuffles into the Bremers' office.

His hands are dirty. Bremer is a hands-on man. In his daily rounds of his family's city, he has joined some of his many employees hired to keep Bremerton, the city, a gleaming monument to Bremer, the family.

In his mind, the two are largely the same.

On his rounds, Bremer might have noticed .that some of his employees had the wrong idea about how best to maintain things -' about how best to paint that pipe, tar that roof or decorate that office.

Ed would not hesitate to demonstrate his way - the only way.

So his hands are dirty but it is for a good cause: Ed has been preparing for The 'Weekly Arrival. It occurs shortly after Bremer shuffles past his secr.etary into a private office.

A . Bremer employee swings the downstairs doors open, revealing a long, dark auto. A uniformed black chauffeur named Higgins jumps from the driver's seat, rushes around the car and hastily but politely opens the side door.

From the car emerges an impeccably _ dressed, middle-aged man· with striking features but a soft, almost effeminate manner: John Bremer, the older son who had inherited his father's business acumen and thus undertook most legal and financial aspects of the business from a desk at the family home, sprawled upon Seattle's Capitol Hill.

He does so under the careful watch of the next to leave the car: Bremerton's first lady, Sophia Bremer.

Also elegantly dressed, Mrs. Bremer ooz-' es dignity and control as she enters the nerve center of her late husband's empire.

Still, she smiles pleasantly and greets the

Boom town: cars line the First Street Dock in 1924, awaiting the ferry to Seattle.

Bremer's office staff. The woman who more than anyone else would shape the future of the city bearing her husband's name does not let her high standing get in the way of niceties. She maintains a mixed-bag face of pleasantry and power when.dealing with her ･ｾｰｬｯｹ･ ｳ and even the general public.

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"She was ...a very fine ｾＧＬｮ｡ｭｯｷ recalls Mrs. Stokes. But "She was ｯｬ､ｾｷｯｲｬ､Ｌ

too.

Oldworld people have a way about them.

I always felt very happy to converse with her.

She never made you feel in awe of her - .....

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William Bremer never."

Of course, "she was forthright. She would say what she wanted to say, but she was very, very, nice."

Pleasantries exchanged, the Bremer clan disappears into a private office reserved for the Friday meetings. Inside, Ed, John and Sophia discuss this week's events and next week's strategies.

They will decide the latest step on a long journey toward maintaining their sense of worth - all that William Bremer had left them.

WHAT WILLIAM BREMER left behind had been obtained through a stroke of what then was considered financial genius.

Trained in banking and finance, the German immigrant's foresight allowed him to cash in on largely unclaimed Puget Sound shorelands. Hearing the U.S. government planned to build a Navy repair yard in Washington or Oregon, Bremer and a partner (Henry Hensel, brother of Sophia Hensel Bremer) invested $32,000 to buy what now is much of West Bremerton and a small part of Puget SoUnd Naval Shipyard.

Acting as a representative of other local property holders, he turned around and sold a large parcel to the government in 1891, absorbing a $16,000 loss on his own land.

It was the first, and one of the last, large financial risks the Bremer family ever

would take.

It paid off handsomely. With his remaining property, Bremer platted atown around the shipyard,and the two grew together.

Bremer's little city became Bremer's big city almost too easily. The shipyard created an automatic, long-lasting spurce of people and revenue. Later, during the boom years of World War II, the shipyard workforce woi;ld balloon to 32,5i>"Q. Md the city population to 80,000.

Under those conditions, Bremerton was destined to prosper - with or without its founder's uncanny business.sense.

His family proved it aftjlr Bremer's unexpected death in 1910. '_ William Bremer's passing remains largely unexplained. The story is that he had taken ill, and that his wife administered a . prescription from a pharmacist.

It is said the prescription was mislabeled, and that the medicine poisoned the 47-yearold land baron. William's younger son, Ed, was only 10 years old at the time, but he would remember it until his own death.

Ed, in his final years of reminiscence, would tell his nurses that Sophia Bremer had had the killer medicine bottle analyzed, finding that it contained a poison, such as cyanide. Mrs. Bremer had considered suing the pharmacist, Ed recalled. But she decided not to.

Ed, if he knew, never said why.

ALTHOUGH WILLIAM BREMER did not live long enough to fully pass his experience, manner and values to his young son, Ed's life forever would be shaped by the elder Bremer's qualities.

The essence of the city father was described at his Seattle funeral, which drew hundreds of friends and associates. His eulogy painted him as n powerful yet generous man who had given many a penniless, would-be businessman a morethan-fair start in commercial life.

In the interest of eStablishing his city, Bremer had been lenient with rent and lease payments - sometimes letting them slip altogether. He donated property and money to charity and churches.

And he did it all quietly.

Bremerton businessmen kept their doors closed the day of his fUneral, and Bremer's eulogy hints at the root of their devotion: "He was generous almost to a fault, and to his own loss and detriment."

In his youth, Ed Bremer could not have known what those wor¢! would mean for his future.

In the end, they would explain why Ed's way was the only way; why Bremerton, the city; became a monument to Bremer, the family.

All of those notions sprang from Sophia Bremer's powerful and immediate reaction to her husband's death.

Rocked by his passage, Sophia, by all accounts, seized control of the family business while drawing her children close to her in an incredibly taut emotional net that would encircle them for the rest of their lives.

Acquaintances say Mrs. Bremer's reaction was natural. Women of her day, with her upbringing, rallied their families together in times of crisis.

"I believe that was the reason they were such a close family," recalls Mrs. Stokes.

"It's because they were forced to manage that estate, which was an extensive estate, even at that time. "(Sophia) had a lot on her plate to look after when her husband died."

John, who later was to control the family business, was only 17 years old. Sophia was alone at the helm.

She had full authority to control the business. William Bremer's will, scrawled by hand in 1900, left one dollar to each child, and all the rest - downtown Bremerton and Seattle real estate then appraised at $201,000 and personal property worth $10,000 - to Sophia.

But he left more than waterfront property.

When Bremer the man passed away, Bremer the image was born and quickly adopted by the family.

The image, simply, was Bremer as he saw himself and as others saw him: a business pioneer driven by a curious blend of benevolence and omnipotence. The former was known only to its recipients, the latter to all. Together, they formed the pattern William Bremer had laid.

Sophia cut and rounded her children to fit it. She would make sure the family lived up to the name.

And the children fell obediently in line.

Not only did they follow, they marched in perfect step.

Neither, John, Ed, nor their older sister Mathilde ever seemed to question the mission; certainly none abandoned it.

For Ed, happiness and contentment became equated with maintenance of the image.

"It was his occupation," said Mrs. Stokes,

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"to keep what his father had left him just going."

Ed had become what he was through what he had. Control was the way he could keep it.

THAT IS WHY ED, on this Friday, knows his hands have been dirtied for a good cause. The Navy City is booming, but today it must be particularly shi)Hlhape. Sophia, the center of Bremerhood, is about to join her sons on a tour of the holdings.

It begins with Bremer's department store, Sophia's pride and joy. The store, launched in the early '20s, was fashioned after Frederick and Nelson and its shelves contained the finest in clothing and housewares.

The Bremers traveled to California or New York to select Bremer's merchandise personally. They bought only the best.

At Christmastime, the family called on professional decorators to deck the halls of Bremer's. It is the Christmas-tree centerpiece of their city.

On her visit this day, Sophia makes a quick store tour, with workers scurrying to right anything she considers wrong.

Once they're outside, the tour continues.

Pedestrians do not cross busy streets against green lights. Cars Dow continually up side streets, searching for an elusive parking spot.

Sidewalks are jammed. As the Bremer car moves slowly along Washington Avenue, shoppers and diners form ant-like trails in and out of the OK Barber Shop, the KBRO Building, the Coder Apartments, the Enetai Inn ("Bremerton's leading hotel- modem, fireproof, private baths," its ads brag) and Kerr Motors.

Turning down Fourth Street, then onto Pacific Avenue, they pass Olberg Drug, the Dietz Building, Navy Yard Produce and Grocery, George's Select Meats, and the City Center Building.

Shoppers and patrons jump from taxis operated by one of five cab companies.

They enter Bremer's, the Diamond 5¢ to

$1.00 store, or the Crow's Nest Beer Parlor.

As the Bremers pass, city merchants smile and wave. Many of them know that the people in the car have provided their livelihood by offering near-free property leases for years.

Some of them owe even their health to the proud yet private people in the car. The Bremers paid many a patron's medical insurance payments during slack business periods.

They also know the Bremers' generosity isn't something they should publicly acknowledge.

M_OV_._19_8_7_p_._e.... . 31

crippled with arthritis.

Ed, who had moved to Bremerton several years earlier, settles back into his office, pausing to reflect upon his work.

Things are as they should be. The big spring his father had wound at the shipyard 50 years earlier still keeps the Bremer clock ticking.

There is little to do but collect the rents and repair the buildings. John handles the former, Ed the latter. It is old-time real estate management in its purest form.

Ed's job is full time, with no retirement age - only a few fringe benefits. For now, that is enough for the youngest Bremer.

More than enough, in fact, in the good years, when being a Bremer is easy.

It will not always be so. Ed will not realize until later that the Bremer way leads to a dead end.

Finding that out will be trying. But Ed's future years prove that the Bremer way always comes first - even in the face of great pain.

The Bremers wouldn't like that. To brag or even be thanked is not the Bremer way.

THE FAMILY'S TOUR ENDS near the shipyard at the Bremer Building, or at the Olympic Restaurant, where the family eats lunch.

Later in the day, John and Sophia catch a ferry for home, where Mathilde Bremer lies

For Ed Bremer

When love was lost, he city remained Near the end of his life, Ed Bremer still remembers a long.qo train ride to Seattle: It has been long ride and Ed Is seated !lext to a young woman with whom he has struck up a conversation. It is a rare thing for him to do. Perhaps that's why it would stick in his memory.

The woman has taken qulte a liking to Ed, and he enjoys her conversation. But Ed is getting nervous. He notices that the woman assumes she can contact Ed after they get off the train - that their brief acquaintance might continue.

AB the train nears Seattle, Ed knows he has a problem. Waiting at the station will be Catherine McGowan, the only woman known to have figured prominenUy in Ed's life besides his mother.

Ed doesn't know what to do. The woman will want to accompany him off the train.

The scenario sends chills up the spine of the extremely shy Ed Bremer.

He takes quick action. Excusing himself on the premise he' is going to the men's room, Ed scurries through the train, finally reaching the last car. As the train slows near King Street Station, Ed solves his exit problem.

He jumps off.

When Ed rushes up to the front of the train, he blends with exiting passengers.

Catherine greets him with open arms. The other woman may still wonder what happened to him.

It would not be the last time Ed would beat the odds to keep the only woman he ever loved happy.

Through the years, Ed's personal life would hang in a tenuous balance between his desires and his family obligations.

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The evening news has ended, and Ed Bremer switches off his Radio Shack AMI FMradio.

Below his sixth-floor apartment, cars rush up SeatUe's Wall Street, past a drably vacant SeatUe Post-Intelligencer building lonely for its trademark globe. A mammoth "Elephant Car Wash" sign flashes against a backdrop of Lake Union and Interstate 5.

It is a view that a frail, nightshirt-clad Bremer, now blind, cannot see.

As he often does in the evening, he begins to talk to Willette Morrison, a private nurse who stays with him during evening hours.

Tonight, Ed is thinking about his mother and all that she meant to him during his 86 years.

Mother held him back, he says. He loved her, of course, but she had her hand in -.

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Catherine McGowan everything he and his family did or wanted to do.

"Mother knew best," he says. "Oh, yeah - Mother knew best. " He says this almost sarcastically - as if he's saying out loud what he's thought a thousand times.

Ed Bremer learned the hard way that the line dividing everything from nothing at all is quite thin and sometimes nonexistent.

Between the good years of the early 1940s, when he assumed a major role in management of the family business, and 1969, when the only other remaining member of his family died, Bremer rounded a series of emotional curves that would leave a normal man dizzied, stunned and groping for stability.

Ed Bremer was a very normal man, in that sense.

But not in others. People who saw "Mr. Bremer" on the streets of his city knew he was different; they knew he was in control.

Especially in the good years. Bremer had everything then, plus his own city in which to store it all.

Not that he ever valued material possessions. Ed's life was austere. He chose a life

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Joy Stokes at Catherine's grave:

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smiling. "I'd pick up a two- or three-piece dinner and take it home to him."

Tangible goods did not matter. In the good years, Bremer's spiritual warehouse was overstocked. He was a happy man - in control of his own destiny, self-employed and young enough to enjoy it.

He and his older brother John were masters of their own universe.

In his last months, Ed would spend hours telling his nurses about those good years -

of Ford and frozen food over Cadillac and cuisine.

Bremer, recalls longtime employee Perry Polk, never lacked dinner invitations, but never accepted.

"He would always stay home," he said. In rare instances when Bremer's cook and housekeeper was out of town, Ed would manage on his own.

"He'd have me stop by Kentucky Fried Chicken," Polk said, shaking his head and

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when he'd take long auto trips with his family, when they would spend time at their summer home at Enetai, when they would travel cross-country to buy goods for Bre-' mer's Department Store.

Old family friends such as former private secretary Joy Stokes recall that the trips were highlights for the Bremers.

"I'll never forget one day I met them (Ed and John) downtown," she said. "They were so enthused. (Ed said) 'Oh, Joy, we just came back from a trip on that new highway, the Canadian Highway, and John and I were just like a couple of cocker spaniels with our heads out the window looking at all that beautiful scenery!' " It was a leisure-filled social life built on what seemed to be a rock-solid foundation: the Bremer family.

The close-knit nature of the family, born of the Bremer Mission, left little time or need for social life outside the clan. Mrs. Bremer, in fact, frowned on it and actively worked to discourage it.

Ed was not bothered by that. In the goOd years, he was quite happy being a Bremer, thank you.

BUT OTHER EVIDENCE suggests that Ed enjoyed Bremerhood so much because he had found a way around it - or at least part of it. For in the good years, Ed had the best of both worlds. He maintained his place in Mother Bremer's net while receiving fulfillment outside it.

In the good years, Ed Bremer was in love.

The only woman he ever loved and the only human being to break Sophia Bremer's grip on her son was a pretty, dark-haired, Irish Catholic girl named Catherine McGowan.

They had fallen for each other as children in Bremerton. Ed later would speak of it fondly to his nurses.

"He told me when he met her he was about IS," recalls Ms. Morrison.

"She was just a little girl. I could tell she probably had a crush on him because he was a little older '(Catherine at the time would have been only 10 years old). He said he'd go by her house, and she would always wave at him."

A woman who started off as a cute little waving girl grew to become the only person ever to break through Ed Bremer's exterior into the painfully shy inner lining.

In a city where Ed was known to all as "Mr. Bremer," Catherine would call the Bremer office and ask for "Eddie."

Little is known about the development of their relationship. If Bremer's later recollections are correct, the couple met between 1915 and 1920. By the early 1940s, Ed ended his daily commutes from Seattle to run the family business, moving into a home at 1920 Sixth Street.

The house was owned by Catherine McGowan.

They lived together for years, perhaps as many as 12.

Friends and acquaintances of the couple are reluctant to discuss the relationship. A live-in arrangement like Ed and Catherine's was not common in those days.

"Yeah, it was strange, for that time," recalled former state legislator and longtime Bremertonian Arnold Wang. "But he was really in love with this Catherine."

"This Catherine" remains somewhat of a mystery. Born in Vancouver, Clark County, and educated in a Catholic school there, Catherine in her adult years apparently had no close relatives in Bremerton. Little is known about her father, Samuel, who once operated a tavern in Bremerton. Two brothers who survived her lived out of the area.

But she had Ed. The pair often would ride around Bremerton cuddled closely in Ed's Packard, making it generally known that the two lived together. But people didn't talk about it in public. Some even assumed the ｯｾ were married. They never were.

IT MAY NEVER BE KNOWN WHY. For years, Bremerton's most famous rumor was that all the Bremer children were forbidden to marry by one or both of their parents, for any of several reasons. Either William's or Sophia's wills, the rumor had it, contained a

Ed and Catherine lived at 1920 Sixth Street.

clause stating that marriage of any child would prohibit him or her from receiving a share of the family fortune.

The rumor was just that. Both wills are on file at the King County Courthouse. William's passes his property on to his wife; Sophia's will leaves the same property to her sons. Neither mentions marriage - not even in passing.

But circumstantial evidence suggests something kept Ed and Catherine away from the altar. Many acquaintances believe that something actually was a someone Sophia Bremer.

While Mrs. Bremer never put her desires in writing, both sons seemed to understand that the family matriarch would never approve of a marriage. And there is little question the sons' undying loyalty rested with Mrs. Bremer.

Ed's reminiscences in his last years support that notion. He often told how he and Catherine took separate ferries to Seattle and met in pre-arranged places after Ed had visited his mother at the family home. He also admitted he cared for Catherine more than anyone in the world, and that he regretted they never married.

He would say those things before and after his frequent sarcastic observation: "Mother knew best."

In the last six months of his life, Ed began to speak negatively about Catherine - as if he suddenly remembered she was less than perfect.

It was as if Ed, near death, was trying to convince himself that he hadn't missed such a great opportunity, after all.

But deep down, he knew he had, and he largely blamed his mother. Ms. Morrison observes that "he had a lot of resentment towards his mother. He wouldn't admit it, but you could tell - it was kind of lovel hate.

"He tried to please her, but ... it meant .giving up a lot."

SOPlUA'S REASONS FOR NOT wanting Ed to marry are anyone's guess. Perhaps something in her own past - some connection to her husband's odd death, for example - shaped her desire to have her sons avoid hardships surrounding marriage. Perhaps she thought it would detract from the tightly wound group she believed the family needed to be to survive.

Perhaps she didn't trust women.

Whatever the reason, Ed's love for Catherine was evidenced by his willingness to risk alienating his mother by continuing the

relationship. In doing so, he walked a hairthin line of personal happiness, strung between the only two women in his life.

Marriage to Catherine could draw the ire of Mother; failure to commit could spoil a relationship with Catherine.

Ed teetered in the center.

HE DID SO, apparently, to the satisfaction of both. Mrs. Bremer waS well aware of the relationship. It was hard to miss. Ed and Catherine lived contentedly and simply in their Sixth Street house, with few close acquaintances aside from Alma Matson, a longtime trusted friend of Ed and John Bremer and Ed's housekeeper for nearly 50 years.

No one close to the Bremers recalls Catherine's holding a job after she began living with Ed. She did become involved in family business, however, often accompanying Bremer employees on purchasing trips for the department store.

The couple owned a small summer home near Seabeck, spending much of Ed's free time there. Ed would later remember his vacation days with Catherine as the best times of his life.

They were happy: Ed, Catherine and a wire-haired terrier named Crackerjack.

Catherine provided the warmest side to the good years.

But the good years were relatively brief.

LIFE TURNED BAD ALMOST overnight for Ed Bremer.

Somewhere along the line, for some reason, Catherine began to drink heavily - an addiction that would upset Ed's tenuous balance.

Ed suspected it fairly early. Apparently, though, it was not something Catherine would admit, because Ed iii his last years admitted to hiring a private detective to follow Catherine and report her activities.

He did not trust her when she drank, and the fact that he wanted to know where and when she obtained her liquor suggests Catherine tried to hide the extent of her problem from Ed. It also suggests it was a problem Ed tried to deal with before it got too bad.

It is unclear how bad it got and how soon.

Surviving friends in a position to know simply don't talk about it. Neither did Ed. Nurses say he never discussed Catherine's drinking problem until his last year of life, when he repeatedly referred to it.

Some things are clear. In 1948, Bremerton doctor Dale Garrison began treating Cather-

Willette Morrison was one of Ed's nurses.

ine for unspecified health problems. In January 1952, her healtp became bad enough that she checked into Harrison Memorial Hospital. Later events suggest that Ed did not know why. He would say later that Catherine was in the hospital for

T he only woman he ever loved and the only human being to break Sophia Bremer's grip on her son was a pretty, dark-haired, Irish Catholic girl named Catherine McGowan.

They had fallen for each other as children in Bremerton. Ed later would speak of it fondly to his nurses.

"He told me when he met her he was about 15," recalls Ms. Morrison. treatment of "female problems."

His somewhat sketchy account of the following events is this: Ed thought Catherine had recovered from whatever malady she suffered. On Feb. I,

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Bremerton. Wash.

May. 1987

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he and housekeeper Mrs. Matson went to hospital to bring her home. She was scheduled to be released. Ed thought.

Ed and Alma entered Catherine's room.

Shortly thereafter, Catherine rose to cross the room for a drink of water. A nurse entered the room, ordered Catherine back to bed, and shooed Ed and Alma out into the hallway, insisting that they not re-enter.

Later that day, Catherine E. McGowan, 46, was dead.

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IT WAS A SHOCK from which Ed would never fully recover. He never had a chance to say goodbye, or to say anything, for that matter.

At first, Ed's shock was so great that "He thought maybe someone had killed her," recalls Ms. Morrison.

Later that day, a shaken Ed Bremer provided the information for Catherine's death certificate. Sex: Female. Race: White. Address: 1920 Sixth St. Usual occupation: Housewife. Birthplace: Vancouver, Wash. Father's name: Samuel McGowan.

Cause of death: Cirrhosis of the liver.

Ed's disbelief at her death indicates he never was aware of the extent of her illness.

Nor were many others. The following morning, Alma telephoned the Bremer office with a short message: "Catherine is gone."

Her funeral at Lewis Chapel in the heart of Ed's city drew hundreds, as did her burial at Forest Lawn Cemetery. She was entombed in the cemetery's "Hope Section," near a white marble statue of a lifesized angel carrying a cross. Catherine had always said she liked the angel, which stood before a monwnent bearing a poem: Behind the cloud the starlight lurks Through showers the sunbeams fall For God who loveth all his works Has left his hope with all Ed, who would visit the site regularly for years to come, must have found the words ironic, even mocking.

CATHERINE LEFT BEIfiND only her two o.lder brothers, both of whom lived out of the area. They turned Catherine's estate over to Ed. Two years later, he signed probate papers that would send the last trace of his most cherished days into musty courthouse files.

She left total assetts of $15,194 (most of which was the value of her home), a 1949 Ford, a $50 savings bond and some household goods. Estate taxes and attorneys' fees took much of the estate.

Ed was left with the house, a check for $261.49 and pain that clung to him like cancer for the rest of his life.

Like any cancer, the pain would spread and attack the very essence of its host.

The death of Catherine - Ed's lone venture outside the bonds of Bremerhood left Ed clinging more fervently than ever to his sources of stability. His city and his family became the essence of his life.

His family was the next to go. Mathilde, Ed and John's older sister, succwnbed to arthritis and other ailments in December 1956. She died in Seattle at the age of 64, having never married or had children.

Sophia Bremer became ill shortly thereafter. She died in 1959 at the age of 87 after a long illness during which either Ed or John was constantly at her side. She had outlived her husband by nearly a halfcentury.

Ed and John were left carrying the Bremer banner. In March, 1969, John suffered a stroke and died almost immediately.

He was 75.

Leaving his funeral in Seattle, Ed turned to a cousin and remarked, "Well, now there's just the two of us left."

But as far as the Bremer name, the Bremer Mission, was concerned, Ed was left alone.

Ed Bremer and a big patch of real estate - they were all that was left of everything the Bremers had been.

The man who had everything and a city was left with but a city.

He would fight to protect it for the rest of his life. ,'.

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This plaque is the sole acknowledgement of the Bremer gift to Olympic College.

As ｲｾｭ･ ｂ

fought, his city stumbled

Fonner state legislator and longtime Bremertonian Arnold Wang erperiencecl firsthand Ed Bremer's unqualified mission to keep downtown Bremerton atop the local economic pyramid.

"He was so damn mad at me one time," Wang recalled. "I had gotten elected to the Legislature, and he was always trying to buy oU somebody down there. He was always looking for somebody to control.

"He came to me, in fact, and said, 'I'll give you all the expenses to get elected. ' "I told him, 'I' e a donation, thanks. ' "So he gave it to me. Then, when I worked liJce hell to get the Warren Avenue Bridge in, Bremer, he came down to Olympia four different times (seeking to block funds for the bridge.)"

"It was the only year he'd ever been down there at all. " Wang refused to give in, even to Ed Bremer.

"Ed was a real nice person in a lot of ways. 1 liked him. But 1 didn't liJce his narrow-mindedness about trying to keep everything tied up in Bremerton.

"You just can't do that. It just won't work."

Ed thought it could.

Left alone to control his family's business, Ed Bremer wrapped it and himself in a protective cocoon. Its strangling effects still are felt in the city he loved.

The sudden 1969 death of elder brother John had left Ed alone in more ways than one. John had been a pillar of support since Sophia Bremer had died, and, more importantly, he had provided the keen business insight that had kept Bremerton's financial heart pwnping.

Following Sophia's death, John had moved from Seattle to live with Ed at the same modest Sixth Street Bremerton home Ed and Catherine McGowan had shared until her death. From Bremerton, John was able to manage business affairs even more successfUlly than he had from Seattle.

When he died, he left Ed fairly well off, albeit with an odd corporate structure from which to command the Bremer business.

Some years before, Ed and John had discussed their future. They were getting older, and they needed to make plans, John advised. They had no wives and no children - only large parcels of real estate.

The question, obviously, was who should receive their inheritances.

John, it is said, was well acquainted at the time with Dr. Norm Richardson, then president of Bremerton's Olympic Community College. John suggested that the college, a

Bremer tours his city in 1978.

well-established and important institution in the Bremers' city, might be the best place to leave their heritage.

Ed saw no reason to argue. He didn't have any better ideas, observes Barry Glick, Bremer's personal nurse during his last

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Glick, interviewed by The Sun in Salt Lake City, where he moved two weeks after Ed's death, recalled that Ed often would discuss the inheritance. Glick is convinced that the two brothers' reasons for leaving

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May, 1987

Bremerton. Wash.

their money to DC were painfully simple: "I'll tell you in a few words," Glick said.

"He (Ed) always said, 'Where else am I going to leave it?' "

IN 1966, THE BREMER brothers made a deal. The first of them to die (they assumed correctly it would be John) would leave. 49 percent of Bremer's Inc. - then valued at $2.7 million - to Olympic College in a trust managed by the surviving brother. Upon Ed's death, trusteeship of John's holdings was to pass to People's National Bank and Olympic College.

Ed, with his 51 percent, still would be in full control of the corporation while he lived, but the ultimate fate of nearly half of it had been decided by John's will. Ed did not realize it at the time, but his brother's will also would provide the first-ever opportunity for an outsider - Olympic College - to stake a claim in Bremer business affairs.

He would live to regret having overlooked that fact.

At the time, it all made sense. It was assumed that Ed also would leave his half to the school, although his will confirming that would not be drawn up until 1980.

The college ultimately would be free to use income from the trusts any way its governing trustees saw fit. The Bremers asked only that buildings or other large projects built with Bremer money be designated as memorials to William and Sophia Bremer.

The will's intent was to make the word "Bremer" a lasting presence somewhere other than merely in the city name.

Initially, things worked out as the brothers planned.

But they did not expect John, who had been in relatively good health, to die so

soon.

THE LOSS OF JOHN'S business mind necessitated other changes in the Bremer operation. From the early 1970s on, Ed came to rely more and more upon attOrneys to guide his business transactions, observes Willard Anderson, who served as Ed's property manager from 1979 to 1982.

And the property managers themselves assumed a more central role in Bremer business management.

But there was little question that Ed was still fully in control. He was the Bremer, so he was the boss.

His employees knew that, and they didn't mind. He was a good boss, they all agree.

The Bremers always had been. Christmas bonuses, even personal gifts, were a family tradition dating back to William Bremer.

The Bremers believed in taking care of their people, a practice that spawned a group of fiercely loyal employees.

"Their people" included their tenants, who to this day exhibit a similar devotion to and admiration of the family.

The category also encompassed many of Bremerton's down-and-out residents. They, too, reflected on Ed's performance as keeper of the legacy.

He provided money and housing to many who needed it. That also was in keeping with his father's heritage.

That heritage was important to him, especially considering the guilt Ed carried for the approval he sought, but never received, from the father he admired so much.

In a family where a knack for business was a measure of success, Ed always was .known as the more mechanically inclined: Bremer son.

When he was a child, Breiner's parents particularly his father - were frustrated that Ed couldn't read, not knowing that it was the result of astigmatism.

"It affected his learning," said Willette Morrison, who later would serve as one of Ed's private nurses.

"His dad wanted him to read, and he couldn't. He felt really bad about that, because he wanted to please him. He really loved his father."

It was not until after his father had died that Ed's eyesight probl!!m was diagnosed.

The elder Bremer, believing that his son simply was not academically inclined, had ｾ

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bought his son train sets and other mechani- calleaming tools.

If he couldn't learn to read, he'd learn something else. He wouldn't go to high school. He'd learn to make a living.

Ed, true to his father's wishes, left school after the eighth grade.

Although there is some question about how well he later was able to read, his sight problem eventually was corrected.

But his father never knew, and Ed always would regret it.

"He always said 'I felt so bad,''' Ms. Morrison said. "He said that more than once."

Ed's management of the family business here required some skills his father never thought he'd have. His success might have made Dad proud.

But the ghost of William Bremer would not be enough to protect Ed and his city from a rapidly changing world.

ED WAS lEFT ALONE to face the Bremer company's most difficult years. He would march head-on into a fray of changing economic and demographic forces armed only with an old-world sense of real estate management.

In William Bremer's day, real estate was something one held onto; it also was something one did not unduly encumber. Father Bremer's teachings lived on in his heir. But Ed's personal background added to them a need to be the lone force in determining the future of his family holdings.

Having failed in a prolonged attempt to find contentment outside the family heritage, he gave all his time, energy and emotion to his business.

It was the one thing he knew he could .still control.

"You have to bear in mind, he had no social life, and he had no close friends," said Anderson, who knew· Bremer as a landlord long before he began working for him. "In order to keep busy, he devoted himself to it."

Ed had wed his business. He was married tO'downtown Bremerton.

For the next 20 years, the jealous landlord fended off challengers to his bride like a ｰｲｯｴ･｣ｾｶ bull seal.

The largest threat came from a new breed of Kitsap County developers who were not intimidated by the Bremer family's long hold on downtown. Their solution was simple: Leave downtown to the old man and go elsewhere.

Ed knew that the customers who kept his holdings alive would go with them.

Contrary to the widely held belief that Ed was woefully ignorant of the threat of suburban shopping malls, Bremer for years had. been obsessed with the economic transformation of other Northwest cities. He frequently had visited or sent envoys to places such as Seattle, Tacoma, Chehalis, . Lynnwood, Aberdeen or Wenatchee - any city whose urban core was threatened by suburban commercial development.

Everywhere he checked, he found the same thing: The suburbs were winning.

He was aware of the threat. He couldn't understand it, ("Lots of people going through here, but nobody's buying anything!" he once observed on a self-guided tour of Southcenter) but he accepted it.

Ed knew his city had boomed on an artificial high created by wartime military activity .at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, leaving him with more buildings than tenants. The buildings were costly to maintain, and Ed knew that further competition from suburban shopping malls would mean more businesses competing for fewer shoppers.

And, also contrary to popular perceptions, Ed tried to do something about it. Over the years, a handful of wide-ranging development schemes designed to shield his downtown from stagnation left Bremer's desk V?ith a "yes" stamp.

They included more than one working plan for .a waterfront hotel and several schemes for major refurbishment of downtown buildings.

None of them ever got off the ground.

Some met with plain bad luck. Bremer employees say Bremer's dream of a water-

·front hotel made it to the blueprint stage as early as the 1950s, only to be rejected by the city because the two-story structure would have blocked views of the water.

Bremerton resident Joy Stokes, Bremer's secretary at the time, remembers that Bremer was crushed upon receiving word that his building plans had been rejected.

"I never saw Mr. Bremer more depressed," she said. "He was just sick. He had this big, old chair in his office, and he pulled his hat over his eyes and just sat there.

"My goodness, the poor man - everything he wanted to do, they wouldn't let him do it. I don't know how he kept his good humor as long as he did."

Other development plans simply could not attract financing because builders decided Bremerton wasn't a good investment.

Anderson cites a plan to convert downtown Bremerton to an enclosed mall as an example. The development plan, which came to be known as Sutter Hill, would have placed a roof over several downtown streets in the hope of attracting shoppers.

Bremer supported it, Anderson said. "We got that thing going." But "it failed because the developer could not attract any major tenants."

Still other projects, backed by real money, were given an initial go-ahead, then nixed at the last moment by Bremer.

Why? Workable plans required cooperation from other entities, such as the port or city of Bremerton, other downtown landholders or out-of-town developers, Anderson recalls. In exchange for their cooperation, the other parties, naturally, expected a bit of control.

And that was something that Ed would never surrender.

"In his inind, (the plans) would be workable," Anderson said. "But in many cases they weren't feasible, because it took other people to work with him.

"He, frankly, was. very interested in developing downtown.

"But it had to be done along his guidelines. " AND IF IT COULD NOT BE DONE his way, Ed consistently worked to ensure that it would not be done at all. His grip on his city became so tight that he squished scores of sprouting, non-Bremer developments between his fingers.

"He was gonna do it, or he was gonna keep anyone else from doing it," recalls Bremerton attorney John Bishop, who saw plans for a large, downtown office building crushed by Ed's unwillingness to cooperate.

"That was just his·nature." .

Bishop and a partner had purchased the historic Enetai Inn on Washington Avenue between Burwell and Fourth streets. They had plans drawn for a 16-story office/ apartment building to replace the aging hotel.

But Ed got wind of the proposal and bought a small strip of land in the midst of the property Bishop hoped to consolidate.

No offer, no amount of negotiations, could convince Ed to sell.

"I had the feeling," Bishop says, "that Ed Bremer just wasn't going to have anyone except Ed Bremer do anything in downtown Bremerton - whether it was good for him or not.

"He acted like Bremerton belonged to him, and it was none of your business."

In the end, like many other would-be downtown developers, Bishop and his partner sold the bulk of their land to Ed. It would remain unimproved at his death.

But the decision to leave it that way was Ed's alone. That, above all else; was what mattered.

The property had become more than real estate to Ed. It provided a manageable constant in a personal world that otherwise 'had fallen apart.

Nobody was going to mess with Ed's Downtown.

His insistence on control eliminated many a possibility for a rejuvenated city core. At the same time, Ed found himself unable to spur renewal on his own, because he lacked the capital to do so. ｾＮ

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The Bremer heritage was the cause. The Bremers always had been kind to their people; they always had treated their tenants with kid gloves.

Their happiness reflected on Ed, and Ed kept them happy. by never raising their lease rates. They were part of his downtown, part of his life.

When Anderson slid behind Merlin Frohardt's former business manager's desk in 1979, "there were rents that had not been adjusted for 20 years," he said.

"We had one office suite leased by a doctor - it was at least 1,500 square feet.

He was paying $100 a month, and Bremer's was paying the heat and electricity."

Likewise, John and Ed had scrambled to consolidate property to convince J.C. Penney to build a new store downtown rather than elsewhere. They offered the store a deal it could not refuse.

"It was a coup to get them to stay downtown," Anderson said. "And the groundlease was a giveaway - to this day."

Later, when Bremer moved to Seattle, Anderson raised many of the rents.

"I'd make the adjustments, and they (tenants) would say, 'Fine. We've been expecting this for years.' " But despite the cheap rents, many already had left.

WITH THE SUBURBS LOOMING and his beloved downtown falling apart around him, a stubborn Ed -withdrew further and clung more tightly to his downtown property.

He could not understand the new set of conditions under which he was forced to work. In the good days, it had been easy.

Then, personal pull could move mountains. And dig tunnels. Bremer was accustomed to quashing threats with little more than a phone call.

Years ago, for example, word spread that the PSNS main gate, which spewed .thousands of yard workers into the heart of Ed's empire daily, would be closed. Traffic from the gate and the shipyard were interfering with one another, it was said.

Ed grabbed the phone, dialed up the shipyard commander, and solved the problem. "That ferry traffic's in the way'! No problem."

Ed dug a tunnel under the street. Cars still use it, and the shipyard gate is still open to pedestrians.

Likewise, it is widely believed that several major projects with the potential to change Kitsap County's future - a crossSound bridge from Seattle to South Kitsap, for example - were thwarted by Ed's influence.

But things were not so simple now. If Ed could not compete with personal or financial power, he would have to find other means.

He did. Ed spearheaded a downtown Bremerton business owners' group that filed suit to block a large East Bremerton development proposed by developer Ron Ross.

The action later would cause more than mere development delays.

Ed's lawsuit and a string of countersuits would result in cash settlements - further draining the pool of money available to develop downtown. That, in tum, would affect the city's tax base and further its decay.

Ed didn't know it, but he literally was loving his city to death.

He honestly believed that if he could hold out just a bit longer, the shipyard would boom once more. Aircraft carriers would come. Downtown would grow on its own.

That's the wayit always had worked.

He'd just have to wait it out. And when the good days returned, Ed would be waiting. He'd be ready. He'd be in controL The property was something they couldn't take away from him.

But "they" would become less patient and find other ways. And what Ed did not know at the time was that he would be less and less able to respond to new challenges.

He was getting old. His health had deteriorated, and his .eyesight was failing rapidly.

In May 1980, Ed became ill and was driven to Swedish Hospital in Seattle.

He would never return to his city again.

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The Sun

May, 19B7 Page 7

Bremerton, Wash.

Gone from' his beloved city, Bremer would not be forgotten Blindness left Ed Bremer, a man who had lived most of his life alone, in need of a friend.

He found one in Barry Glick.

Glick, 38, happened upon Ed while working for a SeattIe nursing agency. He didn't /mow it at the time, but it was the beginning of a relationship that would continue for six years.

Nobody but Ed ever knew why the reclusive Bremer chose Glick to be his sole confidant.

But his devotion to Glick is evident in a story related by Betty Favorite, director of the nursing agency for which Glick worked.

Ed had been scheduled for emergency eye surgery, and "he only wanted Barry to be there when he came out, " she said.

"I said, 'He is in Port Townsend, and there is no way he can get down here, because he has no car. ' "He said, 'I want you to get in your car, go to Port Townsend, and pick that man up. ' "So I did. I'd never done anything like that for a patient before in my life.

_would have to live without sight. ;

THE BlJNDNESS PROMPTED Ed to insist that he have a nurse available 24 hours a day.

But before he met Glick, Ed went through them faster than Kleenex.

"He had full control over the nurses," said Ms. Favorite. "Either he liked them or he didn't."

"The ones who would listen to his stories, those are the ones he invited back.

Il "He was his own boss, absolutely, to the very end. When he said jwnp, we jwnped."

When Ed overheard Glick discussing the temporary nature of his job, he picked up the phone and called Ms. Favorite.

He wanted this guy full time, he said.

"He had a way of just saying 'Do it!'" she explained.

In the coming months, Glick became the only hwnan being Ed Bremer trusted. Other people familiar with' Bremer's final years confirm that Ed was unwilling to face any crisis without him.

Glick, for his part, found Ed's devotion to him "kind of flattering, really."

He knew he would not get rich working for Ed Bremer. Glick from his first invofvement with Ed knew that the Bremer estate was willed to Olympic College, and that Ed wouldn't change his mind on that accord.

But the pay, $10 to $12 per hour, was good, and Glick decided to stay on.

He had been adopted by Bremerton's aging landlord.

He became, in the words of Ms. Favorite, Ed's "legs and eyes."

"Even in bed, he had this bearing... " Glick would soon find out that his seemingly docile old patient was fired by a desire to protect a city across Puget Sound.

Glick, interviewed by The Sun in Salt Lake City, where he moved after Ed's death, provided details of a period that had remained a mystery to most Bremertonians: Ed Bremer's last years.

Strolling into Ed Bremer's hospital room, Barry Glick could not have imagined that tucked beneath the covers with his genteel old patient were the keys to an entire city's future.

It didn't take him 100ig to find out.

What was this man talking about?

Bremer. Bremerton. A connection there, no doubt.

But rich? Powerful? Hardly. The man Glick met that day in 1980 was just another patient - one in a long series of ailing faces he had seen in a six-year stint as a private nurse.

Glick was under contract by Kimberly Nursing Service of Seattle. The agency didn't have much work, they had told the inquiring Glick when he called. Well, they did have this one job ...

Glick took it, not knowing that a temporary job later would turn into a full-time-plus task. Glick would become the eyes, ears and legs of the aging Bremer. He would come to know Bremerton business and politics better than all but a few city residents.

But at first, Ed was just a sick man who needed care.

Ed suffered from pemphigus, an autoimmune disease with an unknown cause. It attacks the body's mucous membranes the eyes, mouth and stomach - much as arthritis attacks the body's jointS. The disease caused tissue to grow over the corneas of his eyes, eventually resulting in near total blindness. Ed could see only faint shadows.

It also hampered his circulatory system; causing ulcerous sores on his legs to heal very slowly.

Pemphigus is a terminal disease, and Ed, upon first being diagnosed, was told it could kill him within three months.

"But Mr. Bremer, being Mr. Bremer, lived quite a long life," said Ms. Favorite, then director of Kimberly Nursing.

Despite the grim prognosis, "he wasn't that sick," Glick said. A nurse was needed merely to apply a silver nitrate solution to Ed's legs, and to administer several medications. He was, in all other respects, a normal, functional, walking, talking man.

"The most devastating thing to him was the blindness," Ms. Favorite recalled. "He was an extremely intelligent man who had run the business for so long. It was very difficult for him to deal with."

Several cornea transplants failed. Ed

Barry Glick: not just a nurse, but a confidant. Ed Bremer's "eyes ｡ｾ､ﾭ legs."

Frivolous litigation. Conspiracy. Glick quickly boned up on the vocabulary of Ed's world. He had .no choice, really: Ed insisted that Glick sit in on every business meeting he would have for the rest of his life.

Henry Milonder, 1986

Ed Bremer, 1969

GlJCK USED THEM BOTH soon after that on a search for a rest home to serve as a more suitable home for Ed, who had stayed in Swedish Hospital for months.

Ms. Favorite earlier had suggested that Ed, once he became more stable, could move back to his Sixth Street home in Bremerton. A live-in nurse could be sent with him, she suggested.

Ed wouldn't have it. Barry Glick was not a live-in nurse, and Ed didn't want to be that far away from his doctors.

So Glick went in search of a nursing home, settling on Queen Anne Villa Care, nestled beneath the Aurora Bridge in Seattle.

There, Glick became quite familiar with the World According to Bremer.

That world was being threatened by people trying to ruin downtown Bremerton, Ed told Glick, filling him in on legal action he'd taken against development in East Bremerton.

Environmental Impact Statements. Restraint of Trade. Frivolous litigation. Conspiracy. Glick quickly boned up on the vocabulary of Ed's world. He had no choice, really: Ed insisted that Glick sit in on every business meeting he would have for the rest of his life.

Glick met Bremer's Inc. attorney Perrin Walker, he met Mark Livas, also an attorney, but serving Ed in the capacity of financial adviser for the accounting firm of Touche Ross; he met Willard Anderson and later Rudy Kolar, Ed's property managers and links to downtown Bremerton; he met Dr. Henry Milander, president of the college that would receive the Bremer inheritance. . Glick fielded phone calls from all of them.

He relayed information to Bremer, waited for a decision, then called them back.

Bremer had to keep posted on his tow:t.

Even though physically removed from his city, Bremerton remained Ed Bremer's life.

"He thought 24 hours a day about Bremerton and about the business," Glick said. "He thought about what he should do and what decisions should be made. That's what kept him going. That's why he lived so long. It';s all he ever thought about."

Back in Bremerton, Ed's property continued to decay, and local officials became more and more incensed at the aging landholder. Bremer was out of touch. Bre-

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Bremerton, Wash,

mer is killing downtown, people said.

But at the rest home, Ed was still in control and that control was keeping him going.

Ed hung onto life, hoping the city he loved above all else would do the same.

That dream was all he had left.

OR AT LEAST IT was all he availed himself of. Ed also had a group of loyal acquaintances and wellwishers - his collective past - wondering how he was. But Ed, upon leaving his city, erased all of that from his life.

He ordered the old house on Sixth Street sold. He ordered most of his personal possessions - especially photographs and memorabilia of himself, Catherine and his family - destroyed.

At that point, little memorabilia existed.

Most of it had been burned in a large pile in Ed's back yard before he moved to Seattle.

Later, from the nursing home, Ed ordered the expensive family silver, marked with a distinctive "B" on each utensil handle, melted down. He told employees to sell his pistol collection, along with furs and jewelry belonging to Catherine and his family members.

He needn't have bothered. Most of the remaining family valuables had been stolen from a Bremer office storage room some tiffi... before.

Friends still are at a loss to explain Ed's assault on his past. Their only guess is it stemmed from his intense bashfulness. Ed was remembered for entering restaurants with two employees, whom he would insist sit on either side of him so no strangers would come close. He never had wanted anyone to know who he was.

Despite his preoccupation with living his life as a Bremer, Ed wanted people who: met him in chance encounters to judge him I as just another guy.

J Perhaps his move to Seattle prompted the fear that his past personal life was not safe because he could no longer keep an eye on it.

But it was more than memorabilia he rejeded. He refused to talk to any callers, even those who had been close frien"ds.

He would have Glick, or later on, Willette Morrison, tell his callers that he was unable to speak, "Tell 'em I'm too sick to talk," he would say.

Even thOse few people who talked to Ed on the phone were forbidden to see him in person. Nurses say Ed's history of pride and control left him unable to stomach the thought of anyone from his past seeing him in such a vulnerable state.

He was humiliated by his condition.

He wanted no part of his past. His pride and failing health teamed to rob him of his personal dignity, which he had always guarded carefully. ' He didn't need friends. All there was for Ed. Bremer was Bremerton. It was his obsession, his sole motivation.

AND HE STILL PACKED enough commercial clout to influence its future. His vote still spoke loudest when the roll was called among downtown property owners, and he killed several development proposals.

"There was a project called Cross-SOund Mall that people thought was a great idea," Glick said. "They were going to put tents over the city.

"It was all up to him, and he nixed it. He said, 'That's a lot of crap.'

"Also, they wanted to put a fishing pier in downtown. He didn't like that idea, either.

He couldn't see how a little fishing pier was going to help Bremerton."

And there was the matter of the Bremer land upon which sat the Washington State Ferries terminal. The state wanted to buy the property and replace the aging terminal. " ｾ､ sent Glick over to look at the pier, to see if it really was rotting away. Glick returned and gave his report: "It is rotting away. Why don't you do something'! If you don't, they'll condemn it, anyway."

Ed said he'd never sell the prime water-

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Back in Bremerton, Ed's continued to decay, and local officials became more and more incensed at the aging landholder. Bremer was out of touch. Bremer is killing downtown, people said.

But at the rest home, Ed was still in control and that control was keeping him going.

front property.

"I might as well cut my own throat," he said.

Ed considered most, if not all, of the business propositions sent his way to be "patch jobs." What Bremerton needed was a Bremer plan - something really good, Ed always would say.

He proposed numerous schemes to get downtown Bremerton off its duff. Maybe he should give Bremerton Chamber of Commerce officials money, he thought. That way, he could influence them and convince them to float his development ideas before the public and businessmen - just to gauge a reaction.

"He always wanted someone else to (publicly) come up with the idea - as long as it was his idea," Glick said.

Or maybe he should get together with Isaac Soriano, he thought. Soriano visited Ed in Seattle twice, the second time immediately after Mayor Gene Lobe unveiled a waterfront redevelopment plan that threatened to condemn waterfront real estate it owners didn't develop it.

"The Sorianos 'were afraid of that," Glick recalls. "They said, 'We'll have to talk with this guy (Lobe). He's a good guy, we like him.'

"Of course, (Ed) never bought it. He didn't want to talk to him."

Besides, the Sorianos would later tell Ed he should sell the ferry dock. Ed never listened to the Sorianos after that.

IN RETROSPECl', GUCK shed some light on Ed's stubbornness and unwillingness to listen to reason: "You have to understand, he was tired," he said. Although Ed's mind by all accounts

was sharp until days before he died, he simply was seeing things from a different perspective.

"He knew what was going on. I don't think he knew how bad it was in Bremerton, but he was concerned. He knew what the mall (soon to be built in Silverdale) would do to downtown Bremerton.

"I think that if he wasn't so old, he would have come up with a good idea. I think maybe his tactics worked when he was younger, when things were in a different age.

"Things worked differently now with attorneys and accountants. He worked on a personal basis. He didn't like writing anything down. He said, 'If I say something, that's what will go, and I'll take your word, but we don't need a document for it.'

"I don't think he was aware that things changed, and that that no longer worked."

ED WAS A SLOW LEARNER, in that sense.

He always did what he thought was right, but he made mistakes and often repeated them.

His legal actions and attempts to block developer Ron Ross stand as an example.

Ed filed numerous lawsuits and created other delays in zoning decisions - all in an attempt to persuade the Bremerton Sears store to locate in a Bremer-backed downtown mall, rather than on Ross property in East Bremerton, where Sears had decided to build.

Ross, who finally lost the Sears store to a new competitor - the Winmar Co. and its proposed Kitsap Mall in Silverdale - sued, claiming Ed had been the motivating force

_

in a group of businessmen out to restrain trade.

Ross won. Ed and other downtown businessmen paid dearly in an out-of-court settlement.

"He worried a lot about that," Glick said, "He worried about the money."

Money that Ed actually could put his hands on had dwindled. Downtown Bremerton businesses had begun to close their doors. Like a string of old tired dominos, Ed's people, Ed's merchants, began to fall.

He had gambled much of the cash left in his corporation on attorney's fees. And he had lost.

But the loss, rather than subduing the aging Bremer, fanned his desire to protect his holdings at all cost. For shortly thereafter, Ed launched a new attack, this time on Winmar's mall plans.

Former property manager Anderson says Bremer actually did learn from his mistakes in the Ross affair. Legal action against Winmar's plans, he says, was "by the book," and should not have led to a large judgment in Winmar's favor.

But to most observers, Ed's decision to take on Winmar didn't make sense. He had just had his hands slapped and perhaps paralyzed by a relatively small developer.

Now he was taking on a corporate giant, backed by the Safeco Co. It proved to be the beginning of the end of Ed's cherished control. He had gone too far, risked too much, without knowing it.

His city already had suffered for it. He would be next. ' EVERYONE AGREES THAT it was then, in the summer of 1984, that the heretofore silent partner in Bremer's Inc. jumped into the fray.

Bremer's decision to try to block Kitsap Mall spurred Olympic College into action.

Recall that the college had a vested interest in half of Ed's beloved downtown.

And they had reason to believe - and probably actual knowledge - that they had an interest in all of it.

Ed, in writing his own will in May 1980, had kept his end of his deal with John Bremer. Ed had left all of his holdings in trust to Olympic College. " That fact had not been overlooked by the man sitting in a fifth-floor office on a cramped campus in the heart of Bremerton.

Olympic College President Milander, who had become marginally involved in Bremer business since the writing of Ed's will, decided he'd better take action to prevent the loss of remaining holdings.

He was convinced that someone had to bring Ed Bremer into line before it was too late.

He quickly met with his employers - the five trustees empowered by the governor to run the college. In a closed-door meeting, Milander and Rich Montecucco, a senior assistant attorney general for the state of Washington who still represents the college, briefed trustees on the state of the estate.

The picture painted that day was much like this: Bremer had taken on Winmar, been sued for restraint of trade, and he was destined to lose.

Bremer had taken out his frustration over the decay of his property on his property managers, firing Anderson in 1982 and Kolar the next year. Bremer's Inc. had been operating without a property manager for months. Nobody was collecting the rents for the few tenants who remained downtown.

Bremer was spending frivolously what money was left on attorneys and consultants.

Bremer was making foolish decisions ("willy-nilly," Montecucco would observe later). He didn't know what he was doing.

The old man was blocking new life downtown.

The trustees must all have nodded. Something, they all agreed, would have to be done about Ed Bremer.

For the good of Bremerton, the old man would have to be throttled back.

He'd have to accept some help.

He'd have to surrender control.

T

er s cont o By 1984, Bilrry Glick had decided that four years of running errands, answering phone calls and corresponding with Ed Bremer's attorneys was enough.

Glick, who had been Ed's personal nurse since 1980, also was faced with a personal crisis: His wife was seriously ill, and he needed time away from his job.

It was too much all at once. Glick left Ed for three months.

He didn't plan to return.

Ed was not immediately told of Glick's decision. Nursing officials were afraid to tell him - they knew how he would react.

But after three months, Ed grew impatient. He tracked down Glick, who had moved to Bellingham, phoned him, and asked him to come back. Glick, whose wife was beginning to recover, couldn't say no.

He returned to find an Ed Bremer who soon would be faced with a whole new set of problems. Ed still would be fighting, but his enemy would change from business competitors to his own company.

, pried 10 se

lth a pe

'7

EDWARD BREMER, as President of Bremer's Inc. and Bremerton Lumber Suppply, Inc., and Individually

!('d" c<·tiJ!tce7) 'cdCZ

iRICHARD H. McDONALD

OLYMPIC COMMUNITY COLLEGE

He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him.

- Bion, c. 280 B.C. The instrument that would pry Ed Bremer's long-clenched fingers off his city and his family's past looked innocent enough at first.

It was typed, double spaced and eight pages long.

It was a simple and straightforward contract, authored and agreed to by attorneys representing Olympic College and Bremer's Inc. Parties to the agreement were Bremer's Inc., the corporation comprising all of Ed and John Bremer's holdings; Ed, majority stockholder of Bremer's Inc. and trustee of the John Bremer trust; Henry Milander, or his successor as president of Olympic Community College; and Rich McDonald, Bremertim restaurateur named in the contract to become the next general manager of Bremer's Inc. The contract had been drafted by OC and Bremer's lawyers to remedy the "Ed Bremer problem" described to Olympic College trustees.

On July 20, 1984, it was brought to Ed's Seattle nursing home, where its contents were carefully read and explained to him.

FIRST TO BE DEFINED in the agreement were provisions for Ed's medical care and for future college involvement in Bremer business.

On those matters, the contract said this: Mr. Bremer is blind and chronically ill.

He is under 24-hour per day medical care.

Bremer's, the college, and other parties hereto agree that during this Agreement, Mr. Bremer's medical and living needs will be met as a first priority in accordance with his past standard of care.

Mr. Bremer agrees to share, with the college, through Dr. Milander, decision authority with regard to management of Bremer's ...

The next paragraph instituted McDonald, a partner in Bremerton's Sinclair's Restaurant, as the new Bremer's property manager until June 30, 1985. The agreement would be up for renewal every year. McDonald would be paid $42,000 a year to run the Bremer business, and he would stay for awhile whether Ed liked him or not: Termination by employer (Bremer's) shall require the joint written decision of Mr. Bremer and Dr. Milander.

The agreement spelled out the conditions under which McDonald would operate: General Manager (McDonald) shall manage Bremer's on a day-to-day basis, but shall consult jointly at pre-arranged meetings with Dr. Milander and Mr. Bremer on policy matters, as a manager consults with the board of a corporation.

McDonald was to work for two bosses, but the agreement made clear he would work

The Grosvenor House was Bremer's final home.

more closely with one of them: Communication between (McDonald) and Dr. Milander and Mr. Bremer shall be in person at the pre-arranged meetings, with Dr. Milander available between meetings for personal consultation with1McDonald).

On the day it was signed, a final provision

was handwritten on the final page.

Titled "Settlement of DisputeS," it stated that Robert Smock, a People's National Bank manager, would serve as a binding arbitrator should Milander and Bremer disagree on any matter, including the firing of McDonald.

People's, it later would be revealed, had a vested interest in keeping the company afloat: Bremer's Inc. owed the bank $2 million for a loan the company had secured years earlier.

The agreement was signed by McDonald; Mike Connolly, the Olympic College dean of business; Milander, who noted that he signed on the recommendation of Rich Montecucco, a senior state assistant attorney general who advises OC; and by Ed, who left a shaky, crooked "Ed B." as his stamp of approval.

LlTl'LE IS KNOWN about the meeting at which the agreement was signed. Milander and McDonald have declined comment on the meeting, as well as most other aspects of Ed Bremer's last days. And Barry Glick, Ed's personal nurse and confidant, was not

Henry Milander took control of Bremer's Inc.

there, having left the job for three months when his wife became ill. The nurse who replaced him was not included in business discussions.

Upon returning, Glick, who copied and saved all of Bremer's legal documents and letters _during -his tenure, soon read the freshlY..Jigned contract, and noticed a potential problem.

It was･｣ｮｴｾ granting Milander an equal say in all matters of Bremer's business. Before, the college had a vested interest in less than half the Bremer fortune. NoW, its management rights extended to all of it.

In signing the management agreement, Ed, a man who had thrived on his lingering control, had signed away half of his authority.

"All of it, really," Glick said in retrospect.

"He couldn't make absolute, authoritative decisions anymore. Now, it was him and the college - him and Milander.

"It sort of cut him in half."

ers of Silverdale's Kitsap Mall.

"Why should I take the full burden of this?" Ed would say. "If the college is going to get everything in the end, anyway, why can't they come in and take part in this?"

The threat of Winmar not only had prompted the college to clamp down on Ed, it had left Ed looking for security in the college.

Before Glick left, Milander had come to visit Ed, hearing his requests for the college ,to join in defending him in the Winmar suit.

When Glick returned, the management agreement was in place.

"The only way the college would come in and do anything was if they got control," Glick said. "(The agreement) was an incredibly big mistake on his (Ed's) part.

"Actually, I wish I'd have been there. I would have talked him out of it. Because after that, he couldn't do anything.

"I don't think he realized what he was doing, because that's when things started going bad."

GLICK BELIEVES ED signed the agreement out of fear that he was about to lose everything to the Winmar Co. Before the agreement was offered to him, Ed had been deluged with attorneys seeking answers, opinions, evidence - even a videotaped deposition - for a restraint-of-trade suit filed against Bremer's by the develop-

BUT TlDNGS WENT fine for awhile, for the brief period before Ed grew irritated at Milander and McDonald.

For the last time in his life, Ed was relatively content. The Winmar suit was settled. Milander and attorneys for both sides had negotiated a deal in which Winmar would receive a large, parcel of prime

Page 10

May. 1987

Bremerton, Wash.

The Sun

1 Bremerton waterfront property and several other small lots. Glick said Winmar officials received rights to the waterfront property only on the condition that they immediately give it back to Olympic College.

Thus, everyone was satisfied: A lengthy and costly trial was avoided, Bremer's Inc. would survive, Winmar would look like a benevolent corporation, and Olympic College would hang onto Bremerton's waterfront.

Ed apparently accepted that. His world was further brightened shortly thereafter when he moved to a new home. In June 1985, Ed was moved from Queen Anne Villa Care nursing home to the Grosvenor House, a towering SeatUe retirement home at Sixth Avenue and Wall Street, near the former home of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

His rent dropped from about $2,500 a month to $480 a month, and Bremer was more content away from the noise, confusion and smells of a nursing home. It offered better surroundings for his meetings with attorneys and accountants, and provided his nurses with more room to operate.

He set up his hospital bed in the apartment's small living room. From there, he would fight his last battles.

Three stories down, in the apartment's rental office, Ed's rental application, still on file, painted a deceiving picture: Employer: Bremer's Inc. Position: President How long: 60 years Salary: $25O,OOO/yr.

The salary figure was a guess - a number thrown out by whoever had completed the form.

Actually, he was living on a monthly expense allowance of $360 a month.

It was intended to pay for his food and household items - everything except rent of his room and nursing care, which cost an estimated $12,000 to $15,000 per month.

IN IUS NEW HOME, ED BEGAN TO meet more frequently with Milander, who, contrary to what many in Bremerton believe, rarely saw Bremer before 1984, according to Glick. The college president, in his first meetings with Ed after the signing of the agreement, was "pretty respectful," Glick recalled.

Glick recalls that Ed at first trusted the college president.

He must have. On July 11, 1985, Ed signed a codicil to his will, changing the trustee of his estate from PeopltQi National Bank to Henry Milander. The codicil, prepared by Bremer's Inc. attorneys, would leave Milander in full control of Bremer's holdings upon Ed's death. Glick, who signed it as a witness, thought it seemed to be in keeping with the spirit of the management agreement.

But within a year, Ed's attitude toward Milander had turned to one of contempt, Glick said. His change of heart grew from a series of disputes with Milander and McDonald, many of which involved money.

When the agreement was signed, Milander already knew, and McDonald soon learned, that Bremer's Inc. was barely afloat. Cash flow was almost non-existent.

Tenants had fled. Costs were up. Profits were down. Money would have to be saved - quickly.

Overnight, the decades-{)ld Bremer tradition of Christmas bonuses for employees became a thing of the past. Salaries were cut. People were laid off.

ED, NOT SURPRISINGLY, resisted those changes. These people were messing not only with Ed's current business, but with nearly a century of Bremer tradition.

He grew irritated, and his anger mushroomed when he found his own spending limited by his company.

Glick recalled countless examples: Ed would want to pay for a consultant's time or for an attorney's advice. McDonald would decline, Milander would back him up.

Without Milander's approval, Ed was powerless.

Ed wanted to buy new grave markers for his family, whose members are buried at

_ plains attempts to limit Ed Bremer's spending: "During the last years of his life, Mr. Bremer's care was a substantial drain on the cash flow of the businesses. It was necessary to limit cash flow for other purposes to ensure Mr. Bremer's wellbeing."

But Ed and Glick believed that Bremer's Inc. was nothing if it did not exist for Ed Bremer.

"My feeling throughout this whole thing was that it was his business, and if he wanted to he could throw a block party for all of Bremerton," Glick said. "Businesswise, he wasn't right on. But. it was his business.

"It got me mad."

For the next year, Glick worked to protect what he considered Ed's rights.

Breme(.,Hved out his days behind this doOr.

SeatUe's Lake View Cemetery.

The markers were too expensive, came McDonald's response.

Eventually, the markers were ordered.

Today they are in place. But it wasn't without a prolonged fight, Glick said.

Ed would want Glick to travel to another city and look at a mall. Just pretend you went. Make up the results, McDonald responded.

Other times, Ed would want to seek advice from accountants at Touche Ross, the firm that had handled his corporate bookkee ing for years.

McDonald, seeing the $500 bills for brief visits, eventually sent Bremer a letter placing a cap on his consultant fees, Glick said.

Ed was enraged.

It was his company. He could hire whoever he wanted, he thought.

THE PROBLEM CONTINUED and was worsened by Ed's belief that Kane, Vandeberg, Hartinger and Walker, the Tacoma law firm retained by his company, was representing only the interests of the Bremer's Inc. headed by Milander and McDonald, and not the Bremer's Inc. lying in a hospital bed.

Although the attorneys no doubt were just doing their jobs by acting in the best interests of the company, Glick acknowledges, they often were seen by Ed as enemies.

At one point, for example, Ed was furious when attorney Bill Coats recommended that he settle with the state, which still wanted to purchase Bremer's ferry terminal land.

It's best to sell, Coats advised, because the state will condemn the property, and Bremer would be left with little or nothing.

Milander often offered similar advice.

"He didn't want to hear it," Glick said.

"So he thought Bill Coats was a jerk - he wanted his own attorney."

In late 1985, Ed hired Seattle attorney Carl Jonson for a second opinion.

Soon after that, Ed received a copy of a letter from McDonald to Jonson. Any future bills incurred for legal advice for Ed Bremer will not be paid, it said.

Again, Ed was furious.

Glick agrees that Ed was prone to go overboard, and that much of his spending probably was unnecessary.

That was reason enough for Milander to limit his budget, according to a letter to The Sun from the college president.

Milander declined to be interviewed for this series of articles, saying Ed Bremer would not have approved. But in his letter, in which he responds to questions about his management of Bremer's, Milander ex-

ClUEF AMONG THOSE rights, in Glick's eyes, was Ed's right to remain informed about his business. As time passed, the man who lived for his city was losing touch with it. Ed blamed Milander and McDonald.

The agreement had stipulated that Milander. would meet personally with Bremer on a regular basis.

But "(Milander) would only come when he wanted something done," Glick said.

"When he wanted a paper signed, he'd be here like that," he added, snapping his fingers. "He couldn't do anything without Mr. Bremer's signature."

Ed complained constantly to Glick about Milander's inattention to him. "Why don't you call him and tell him to come over?"

Glick would ask.

"He should know to do that himself," Ed would respond.

When he did come, the two never agreed, Glick said. What Ed wanted and what Milander wanted "were never the same thing."

Ed quickly lost his initial. respect for Milander's opinions. "(Ed) always used to say that Milander had no head for business - I" usiness sense at all. 'The man's a college professor.

He doesn't know anything about the real world ...' he always used to say."

Milander wanted to settle things, to sell the ferry terminal. Ed didn't want to hear that.

This man wanted to give away his city.

"In all fairness," Glick added, "every person who came to take over his business was seen as no good, because he didn't think exactly like Mr. Bremer. You know, they had these degrees, and they had their own way of doing things."

But Glick, too, grew to dislike Milander, who he said never respected Ed's opinions, treating him as little more than a nuisance.

"He'd come with papers to sign, and he wasn't patient with Mr. Bremer. He didn't care for Mr. Bremer's opinions. He just listened to them then went on with his own train of thought.

"He never came to.inform Mr. Bremer, to keep him up on what was going on so that he could think clearly about what to do.

"He treated him like a non-person, really."

After an unsuccessful meeting with Bremer, Milander would be seen downstairs, rolling his eyes skyward and complaining about Ed to attorneys, Glick said. The old man wouldn't cooperate.

Milander, asked about Glick's recollections, replied in his letter that "Mr. Bremer and I did not always agree" on management decisions. But, he adds, the two did agree on many issues, and "Even when we disagreed, Mr. Bremer never accused me of making a decision for my personal gain or questioned my integrity."

ED WAS EQUALLY dissatisfied with the management efforts of McDonald, whom he and Glick believed was bound to report regularly on business matters as past managers had done.

Glick largely credits McDonald for saving . the corporation after taking over in 1984.

But McDonald also failed to keep in touch, he said.

Glick recalled only one meeting between

McDonald and Bremer, and few phone calls.

"I even called McDonald once," Glick said.

"I said, 'I think you should write a weekly report.'

"He thought that was a joke. 'I shouldn't have to do that,' he said.

"If that had been before the agreement, (Ed) could have just fired him."

McDonald's only comment for this series of articles came in a short, written statement, in which he writes "My decisions in the day to day operations of the company ... were always based on what was best for Bremer's Inc." But Bremer's Inc. actions or oversights built up the frustrations felt by Bremer and his nurse.

Twice duririg Ed's stay at Grosvenor House, the company forgot to pay his rent.

"The manager had to come up and tell me," Glick said. "They paid it right away when they found out. It was no big deal.

"They just forgot."

AN ENCOUNTER between McDonald and Glick was the last straw. Early in 1986, Ed sent Glick to Bremerton to retrieve the last of his personal effects from the Bremer's Inc. office. While he was there, he was to pick up an office key so he could return .whenever Ed wished.

McDonald resisted.

Ed retaliated. He immediately called upon Touche Ross, at that point the only organization he still trusted. They suggested that Ed, if he wanted personal legal advice, should contact an attorney separate .from the firm representing Bremer's Inc. That was what Ed wanted to hear.

He had Glick make another call to Carl Jonson.

"He wanted to know how he could get out of the agreement, how he could get some of his power back," Glick said."He路 wanted to fire McDonald." .

But in the back of Glick's mind was the earlier letter from McDonald. How would he pay for Jonson's services?

Just do it, Ed said. Pay cash.

So the aging Bremer paid $100 from his food allowance to consult with a personal attorney.

Glick then was left with the unlikely task of finding more money to feed his multimillionaire patient.

It was not forthcoming from McDonald, who knew that Jonson's opinions could cost him his job.

"McDonald knew why I wanted the money, so then he refused to give us any more," Glick recalled. "Up until then, he'd never really denied Mr. Bremer anything..He was a pretty good guy. He wasn't paid to be Mr: Bremer's friend. He was paid to run the business, and he was doing that the best way he knew how."

And, McDonald explained in his letter to The Sun, the Bremer's Inc. "policy" prohibited him from paying bills for services not .authorized by both Ed and Milander. The release of money for unauthorized uses thus would be delayed until McDonald received approval, he explained.

"The continued effort was to have the company work together as a whole rather than individuals working independently," he wrote.

That didn't help Glick. Finally, he turned to People's Bank, which had handled Bremer's accounts for years. All of the corporate accounts are in Mr. Bremer's name, he was told. So Glick obtained a withdrawal slip, had Ed sign it, and took $700 out of a Bremer account.

It would allow a two-month reserve, Glick figured - just in case things got worse.

They did. Ed, after talking with Jonson, pondered his angry dislike for Milander and McDonald, and took action.

He still had some clout. He could stop them from selling off his city. He'd show them. He'd cancel that agreement.

They would cooperate, or Ed would leave it all to someone else.

The Sun

ｂｲ･ｭ ｾｴｯｮＮ

Wash.

May, 1987 ･ｧ｡ｾ

11

Ed Bremer and his city: separable in death Rich Montecucco might well have choked on his morning coffee the day that he opened his mail and found that Olympic College's inheritance was in jeopardy.

The letter he received was from Seattle attorney Carl Jonson, who was representing a Mr. Edward Bremer.

Montecucco, an assistant state attorney general, had represented the college since its first involvement with the Bremer estate. The letter, signed by Ed Bremer, threatened to give him one less client to worry about.

Montecucco and Olympic College, heir to the Bremer family fortune, are hereby 'notified of Ed Bremer's intent to cancel the management agreement serving as the basis for their relationship since July 1984, the letter stated.

The letter, recalls Ed's nurse and confidant Barry Glick, was the culmination of more than a year of disputes between his patient and Bremer's Inc., by then operated. primarily by Bremerton restaurateur Rich McDonald and Olympic College President Henry Milander.

Jonson, contacted by Ed on the advice of Bremer's accountants, advised the Bremerton landowner of his rights after reviewing the managment agreement with Olympic College.

"Carl Jonson looked at the agreement and said, 'I don't see any reason why you can't terminate this agreement, fire McDonald the next day, and tell the college to go jump. In fact, you could even change your will and tell the college you won't leave anything to them,' " Glick said.

Ed chose to limit his actions to termina- . tion of the agreement. His brother already had established the tie to OC. That should not be broken, he thought, lest his family legacy be cut in half.

But the agreement had to go.

MONTECUCCO QUICKLY wrote a response, mailing it to Ed, he says, with the consent of Milander and the college trustees.

The letter, read to Ed Bremer by Glick, shocked both of them.

"It was incredibly nasty," Glick said. It said, in essence, "If you cancel the agreement, we'll have you declared incompetent, we'll have you removed as trustee of your brother's trust, we'll sue you and we'll sue your nurse," Glick said.

Montecucco, asked later about the letter, said he couldn't recall exactly what it said, but that it was one in a series of letters whose intent was to get Ed Bremer to "shape up" his shoddy business activities.

He never threatened to sue Barry Glick, he said, although he did remember telling Bremer that "if anyone is aiding and abetting you ... we'd take a look at who's responsible."

A copy of the letter was mailed to Jonson.

Ed was ready to press on. But Jonson changed his mind. He advised Ed to back down.

"He decided it would ruin the corporation (to have the two trusts operated by separate heads)," Glick ｾｳｬ｡｣･ｲ "And, being a corporate attorney, he couldn't stand to see the . business go down the tubes."

Ed, after much persuasion, relented.

IN DOING SO, THE last Bremer essentially had lost control of Bremer's to Milander, who Glick says by that time was seen

by Ed as an uncaring businessman out to take over his company and fritter away his family's city.

Ed was powerless.

He apparently never took one step available to regain at least a portion of his power - that of calling in People's Bank's Bob Smock, the arbitrator designated to settle disputes between him and Milander. Ed had no problem with Milander. His problem was Milander.

And he soon would die not knowing that he had left Milander in sole control of his

The Bremer family is buried in a Seattle hillside cemetery.

Ed was tired. He gave up his struggle to win back control of the business. At the same time, he gave up on lif@. family's holdings, Glick says. A year earlier, before he had grown to dislike the college president, Ed had signed a codicil to his will naming Milander as the sole executor of his estate. And the college soon after Ed's death would appoint Milander trustee of John Bremer's estate, replacing Ed in that position.

Milander was left alone at the top of Bremer's.

That's the way Ed wanted it, Milander says. He states in a letter to The Sun (his only participation in this series) that Bremer, not he, suggested that he be appointed trustee of the estate. "I never asked him for the appointments," Milander's letter says.

"I indicated to him I was willing to serve in those capacities, but I never asked him for the appointments."

Milander, who notes that he was not present when Ed signed the will's codicil, adde4, "I have no doubt that Mr. Bremer ... knew exactly what he was doing when he signed."

Not true, Glick insists: Ed's intent was to have the fate of his holdings determined by the college board of trustees.

"I remember it (the signing of the codicil)," said Glick, who signed it as a witness.

"I said, 'Are you sure you want to sign this?'

"He (Ed) didn't even hear the words 'college president,' " Glick asserts. "He just said, 'This is the college, right? The col-

lege.'

"He wasn't thinking as clearly as he should. He never thought of one man being the trustee. I know that, without a doubt."

But Ed signed anyway, Glick said, perhaps for the same reason he signed other agreements : "He had trouble with his bowels, and he would build up a lot of gas. If someone

would stay long enough, he'd eventually just , agree with them." .

MlLANDER INSISTS that Glick's assertions are overblown. Ed Bremer could not have been that dissatisfied with him, he says, or Ed would have changed his will to have him removed as trustee.

"It seems ridiculous to assume Mr. Bremer would know how to change his will in 1985 (when he named Milander trustee), but wouldn't know how to do so less than one year later," he wrote.

Ed did know how, Glick said. But at that point, he had accepted his fate.

Despite his distaste for the new Bremer's managers, "he realized that that (rejecting the influence of Milander) would destroy the town worse," Glick said. Ed thought he owed it to his brother, and to his family, to leave it all in one piece.

There would be no more fighting. "He didn't want to rock the boat anymore," Glick said.

Ed was tired. He gave up his struggle to win back control of the business.

At the same time, he gave up on life.

"That's my opinion," Glick saiji. "I think he realized that the (ferry) dock was going to be sold, that McDonald wasn't going to be fired, and Milander never would come for meetings. He had no idea what was going on, and the new attorney he got (Jonson) more or less went to the 'other side.'

"And he just sort of ... gave up."

Ed's health never really plunged until the very last days, Glick said. He merely lost the will to live.

Willette Morrison, another private nurse who was with Ed most of the time when Glick wasn't, agreed.

"I think he could have lived a couple more years - I really do," she said. "That

business really kept him alive.

"Bremerton was his life."

Quite literally, it turned out.

Before the JonsonlMontecucco exchange, Glick could get Ed fired up about life by sparking him to fight for his ideals.

Before the final blow, "(Ed) would say, 'I've got to fight 'em, because I'm the ｾｮｬｹ one left,' " Glick said. "I would try to feed into that, because I knew it was the only thing keeping him alive. But then he got to the point where I couldn't even talk him into it."

IT IS A SHORT TIME later, and Ed is living his last days in room 616 of the .Grosvenor House, never venturing outside its door. For the first time in his life, there is nothing to fight for, nothing to maintain.

He has nothing left but his worldly possessions: a radio, a bed, a microwave, a minirefrigerator, two raggedy old chairs, a $3 garage sale coffee table, an old carpet sweeper, a couch and some throw rugs from the Salvation Army.

He falls into a routine. Every day, he is up around 8. First comes breakfast, then the morning news on the radio, then the morning nap. He eats lunch and takes anotPer nap. He has supper, then goes to bed around 9:30.

He no longer dresses. Ed sits in his nightshirt and reminisces. In the daytime, he talks of his business and what could have been. His mother, he says, she set them back. The family had owned prime property in downtown Seattle, and she'd sold it for a song.

They could've been billionaires, Ed says.

Another time, Mother scotched a deal Ed and John had worked out to build a large apartment building. "You can't do it," Mother Sophia had said. "Bad girls hang out in apartments."

Mother died and John sold the family home, and someone built an apartment ｾ building where it stood, Ed recalls.

In the evenings, Willette Morrison comes on duty and the memories change to Catherine. He never could go back to Seabeck ｾｲ Catherine died, he says. He tried, but he "just couldn't do it.

It hurt too badly.

But maybe she hadn't been so great after all, he says.

"Mother knew best."

Sometimes, Ed has his nurse read the Bremerton Sun to him, and many of the

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12

May, 1987

The Sun

Bremerton, Wash.

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stories leave him angry and depressed.

"Downtown store to close," many of the headlines say. Ed's city is dying and· Ed is dying with it. He is powerless to stop either painful death.

"Milander office expensive to furnish," another headline says. Ed, sitting blind in his stark room, is disgusted.

The end comes quickly. On July 9, Ed comes down with pneumonia and is rushed to the hospital. The next day he is released, returning to his room. His mind begins to go. He is in Bremerton, and he has to call Mother. He keeps talking about this.

It is Friday morning, July 11, and Ed keeps talking. He knows he is dying.

But he can't die yet, he says. There's one more thing he has to do.

Ed never does it, nor does he ever say what it is.

As he slips toward death, Ed has found no peace. The family mission' has ended and Ed tastes the guilt of failure.

The other Bremers had died with hope hope they entrusted with survivors.

Ed is the last hope. There will be no more Bremers.

On his death bed, Ed finds final proof that the family way was self-defeating. He knows now that the Bremer Mission could be fulfilled only in a perfect world, and he alone faces the pain of reality.

Finally, Ed dies. Ｌｹｬ･ｴ｡ｩ､ ｭ ｾ the Bremers are a historical note.

Ed Bremer's final resting place: a Seattle cemetery.

THE NEXT DAY, Rich McDonald arrives

to clean out Ed's apartment. Not much in here, he thinks, shocked at the stark interior. McDonald needs a suit to take to the funeral home. He finds one in the closet. It is an old suit. Ed used to wear it when he was 70 pounds heavier. He will be buried in it.

Early the next week, a handful of mourners gather for a graveside service at Seattle's Lake View Cemetery, near Volunteer Park. Attending are Ed's nurses ("It's like losing my grandfather," one of them observes), a couple old friends and employees from Ed's city, attorneys and one of his ad"::sers from Touche Ross.

Milander and McDonald, now in control of the company, are not there. Nobody seems to know if they chose not to come, or if they simply were not invited.

A Catholic priest conducts the brief service. "I've been asked to come say a few words about Ed Bremer," he says.

But he struggles. "I didn't even know this man."

Ed wasn't Catholic - not very religious, even.

He is laid to rest next to his brother in a row containing all of the Bremers, on top of a knoll in a cemetery that is home to many of the Northwest's pioneer legends.

After the service, Barry Glick and his wife, Sheryl, go home to pack. Now that Ed is Ｌ･ｮｯｾＧ they will move to Utah with a hardlearned lesson in life: "Money means nothing. There's something else out there," Sheryl would recall months later.

Ed's friends from Bremerton board a ferry and travel across the waters Ed loved to ply as a youth. They pass near the Navy ships that long propelled the Bremer's perfect world. They land at the ferry dock,

About the reporter "Controlling Interest" was written in April by Sun Staff Writer Ron Judd after a three-month investigation into the life and Jieath of Ed Bremer.

The series contained in this special section originally was published in The Sun between March 30 and April 4, 1987. Research began in late January.

Information for the series was gathered from interviews with approximately 35 past :lmployees or acquaintances of Bremer, from court documents and legal contracts and from existing historical information about the Bremers and Bremerton.

Judd, 24, has been employed at the paper since November 1985. A native of Duvall in .

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In the evenings, Willette Morrison comes on duty and the memories change to Catherine. He never could go back to Seabeck after Catherine died, he says. He tried, but he just couldn't do it.

It hurt too badly. soon to be state-owned, that Ed clung to, and cross over the tunnel Ed built to keep his city bustling.

They drive down the same streets the Bremer family toured weekly 40 years earlier. Many of the buildings are the same.

Just older. And empty.

Near City Hall, some of them pass a memorial to William Bremer.

It was his "wisdom and foresight" that made the Navy City boom, says the easy-tomiss monument next to a large green trash can.

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The mourners, driving past deserted sidewalks, don't say so, but somehow they know: William's son fought harder than his father to protect the family's city. Like Father, he believed in what he did, But there will be no monument for Ed Bremer.

FIVE MONTHS LATER, Bremerton's leading business officials gather at Raffle's Oyster Bay Inn to hear the new landlord of downtown break his silence on plans to

Just up the road and down a floweringcherry-tree-lined lane, two of the people Ed Bremer cherished most lie side by side. The graves of Catherine McGowan, the woman Ed loved, and Alma Matson, his housekeeper for 50 years, look as new as the day they were laid. .

Joy Stokes, Ed's former secretary, still lays flowers there on holidays. She promised him several years ago she would do so as long as she is able. Ed appreciated that.

Catherine's headstone is made of expensive red granite - it stands out against all the others in the Hope Section at Forest Lawn.

Ed wanted it that way. He would be pleased that the grave site has not changed.

The white angel is still there, guarding the

East King County, he is a 1985 graduate of Western Washington University in Bellingham, where he studied history and journalism.

He previously worked as an intern at The Sun and as a reporter/photographer at the weekly Anacortes American.

In his normal capacities at The Sun, Judd reports on education in Kitsap, North Mason and East Jefferson counties.

He also writes regularly about matters at Olympic College.

He is single and lives in Central Kitsap County near Seabeck. ..

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develop Bremerton's waterfront.

On a wet December day, the luncheon is jam-packed. Henry Milander's talk has drawn the largest crowd anyone can remember for a Chamber of Commerce meeting.

It is a festive occasion. Business leaders feed on macaroni salad and enthusiasm.

Finally, the stranglehold has been broken, they say.

Milander promises that thiilgs will be different now. Bremer's is on the move. The large money drain of 24-hour nursing care has ended. He already has spoken to developers about a new waterfront complex. At long last, Bremerton will see progress.

Ding dong, Old Ed is dead.

The business leaders are ecstatic. Pain and difficulty pave the way for progress, and they have felt their share of both.

Downtown Bremerton was near death, but the future is bright.

The new head of Bremer's really cares about Bremerton. Finally, there is hope.

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words Ed knew too well: .. .For God who loveth all his works Has left his hope with all

Ed Bremer

At the same moment across Puget Sound, rain splashes off an undistinguished gravesite in Lake View Cemetery.

Months after his death, the grass above Ed Bremer's grave still looks like a lumpy patchwork quilt. A temporary, concrete slab marks his spot: "EDWARD BREMER, 1900 - 1986."

Like Catherine's, Ed's marker also stands in contrast to all the others in the cemetery.

Next to towering marble structures bearing names such as Denny and Renton, Ed Bremer's marker looks like a patio ｾｬｯ｣ｫＮ As a monument to a man of power, standing and wealth, it is horribly out of place.

As a memorial to the Ed Bremer who died in July, itis somehow appropriate.

There is no angel near the grave, nor any sign of hope.

It is the resting place of a man who lived for a family, and of a family who lived for a city. It is the grave of a man whose love for the family made him and the city inseparable.

They suffered together, Ed and his city.

Only now are they separate.

Cities can live again.

Copyright 1987 © The

Photos by Theresa Aubin, larry Steagall, Steve Zugschwerdt. and Ron Judd of The Sun's Staff. Additional photos courtesy of Kltsap County l:iistorical Society and friends of Ed Bremer.

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