To our cherished friends and family:
On March 5, 2010, Andy lost his battle with brain cancer that began in December of 2008. There will be a memorial service to celebrate his life on April 16, 2010 at 2:00pm at Pilgrim Lutheran Church, 10420 SE 11th St., Bellevue, WA. The service will be conducted by Pastor Arthur Werzner of Lutheran Ministries who befriended Andy from his first hospitalization to the end. Andy liked and respected Pastor Arthur who visited him often at Manor Care, prayed with us and showed nothing but love and compassion to everybody in our family.
Andy was born Robert Andrew Haug on October 9, 1950 in Montevideo, MN. Baptised and Confirmed in the Lutheran church, he grew up in Olivia, MN as Bobby to his family and Bob to his friends. He graduated from Olivia High School in 1968 and from the University of Minnesota with an Electrical Engineering degree in 1974. Right after graduating he moved to Seattle to work for Boeing. He still called himself Bob. When Boeing laid him off he moved to Chicago for a job with Seattle-based CX Corp. He was later transferred to Seattle with CX Corp. and decided that Bob was “boring” and changed it to Andy. That was fun since he now had his original group of friends in Seattle who called him Bob and his new friends who called him Andy. Eventually his old friends went to ‘Andy-Bob’ and finally gave in to Andy. His parents even ended up calling him Andy only his dad would slip every now and then and call him Bobby.
Andy loved school of any kind and education was very important to him. In 1983 he received an MBA from the University of Washington and in addition to being a Minnesota Vikings fan he was now a ‘DAWG’ fan. He always said he extended his schooling at the UW for one extra fall quarter so we could have one more season of Husky student football tickets. We remained ticket holders until 2008 and were lucky enough to attend the Rose Bowl with the Huskies on a couple of occasions. He would be thrilled to know the Huskies are Pac10 Champs.
Andy and I met at CX and married in April, 1980. Andy loved being a part of a big family and always wanted to be a dad. In 1991 we adopted Brian and in 1994 our son Matthew was adopted. Andy was fiercely protective of his boys as they were the light of his life. Whether coaching little league, keeping football stats, meeting with teachers, helping with Boy Scouts or ‘trying’ to help with homework, he wanted nothing more from his boys then to always do their best and treat people with respect. As for helping with homework, the boys hesitated to ask their engineer father for help as he would usually take the long way to get to the answer and by the time he got there the topic had completely changed. I know a lot of you can relate to this as that is how Andy usually approached all of his stories.
One sport Andy got into after moving to Seattle was sailing. He started with a Cal 20 and got us into situations that should either have split us up or stopped me from ever boarding a sailboat again. He smiled all through it as you may have guessed. Like many other boaters andy got ‘2-foot-itus’ and eventually we had a 30′ boat. Sailing in the San Juans was some of his happiest times and he loved to take friends and family with him on his adventures. When he took a job in 1996 that transferred us to Minnesota our sailing days ended as we sold the boat and headed to the Great White North.
It is ironic that of all the places Andy transferred to he ended up with a job in Minnesota since he said he would never go back. We stayed there for 3 years and the boys started their education at New Life Academy in Woodbury. When Andy took a job with Tally Corp. we moved back to Seattle where we eventually settled in the Lake of the Woods neighborhood in Woodinville.
We loved our neighbors in Lake of the Woods and made a lot of long-lasting friends there. Andy was on the board for a couple of years as the ‘security guy’. He was very glad to hear about the neighborhood support we had during his stay at Manor Care. It was very humbling to see all the time and effort that was put into providing weekly meals for us, the front yard cleanup, the handling of our craigslist items and the 3-day all-community garage sale that was for our family’s benefit before the boys and I moved to our new apartment in Redmond.
Andy loved basketball. He played for Olivia High School, for the University of Minnesota and continued with different leagues and groups of friends. I was never sure if he was going to come home with a tooth knocked out or end up on crutches as he did more than once. I would say his basketball days lasted right up to the end as two of the groups he played with visited him often at Manor Care with lots of beer, food and wine since that is what ‘basketball’ was really all about anyway. One of those groups included my three brothers and his cousins Mike and Tom Haug who were like brothers to him. Those guys were always by Andy’s side right to the end and could make him smile and bring out his sense of humor even when speaking was so difficult.
Andy loved to travel and we did a lot of it. His dream was to take the boys to Paris which we were unable to do. It never mattered where we were, each time we left to head home from a trip he would ask “could you live there?”. He was always looking forward to the next great adventure.
In 2005, Andy decided that making wine would be something of a great ‘adventure’ and he made 41 barrels of it with a winemaker in Eastern Washington. In 2007 we transferred the 41 barrels to Woodinville and set up our tasting room. In honor of his grandfather he called the winery Anton Ville Winery. He dove into winemaking with a passion and took classes at night from South Seattle Community College. The smartest thing he did was hire wine consultant, Cheryl Jones, to help us with the winemaking. As Andy always said, “Cheryl has forgotten more than we will ever learn”. After Andy became unable to work at the winery, I took over but not without being interviewed constantly about what I had done, when I did it and what the next step should be. The winery was his baby and he was very proud of the quality of wine we produced. The winery is still up and running and ‘my angels’, Rose and Leslee, make sure to have the tasting room open for weekend traffic. Andy was very grateful for these two ladies as well as the wine community around us who are always ready to help.
When Andy was diagnosed with brain cancer in December, 2008, he was determined to battle it out and did so until that last day. He never gave up or gave in to the disease. Brain surgery in March, 2009, left him disabled as he lost most of the function on his left side and all of his left field of vision. He was never able to drive again which bothered him a lot. Getting another job was something he talked about even in his bed at the care facility. He was still looking for the next great adventure and brain cancer was not going to stop him. Many thanks to Dr. Matthew Lonergan and his staff at Cascade Cancer Center in Kirkland. Andy always liked his weekly conversations with Dr. Lonergan and the conversations usually had something to do with wine, home-building, basketball or other sports rather than cancer.
It is always comforting to find a silver lining in everything and I guess it would have to be that we had the opportunity to say goodbye. Nothing was left unsaid between Andy and the many family and friends who visited or called him during his month at Manor Care. The way our neighbors, family and friends surrounded us with nothing but love and care had to make Andy more at ease knowing that the boys and I were going to be taken care of.
In addition to Brian, Matthew and Janiece, Andy is survived by his mother, Sydella Haug; brother Dave (Mim) Haug of Del Mar, CA and their daughters Sara (Kyle) of San Francisco, CA and Claire Haug of Minneapolis, MN; mother and father-in-law Dean and Esther Lange (Bellevue, WA), sister-in-law Marci/Gene Cook and their sons Justin and Alexander (Woodinville, WA), brother-in-law Bill/Wendy Lange and their children Ali and Will (Bellevue, WA); brother-in-law Jeff/Lisa Lange and their children Zach and Zoey (Everett, WA), brother-in-law Mark/Mechelle Lange (Snoqualmie, WA); his Aunt June Haug (Mill Creek, WA); his cousins Mike Haug (Granite Falls, WA) and his children Michael and Diana; Tom/Hillary Haug (Edmonds, WA) and their children Katie and Andrew; Cindy/Stan Marriott (Camano Island, WA) and their children Emily, Thea and Anna; his Aunt Lorraine Haug (Escondido, CA); his cousin Pat/Chuck Cummings (Ramona, CA) and their son Andy; his cousin Dana/Dean Baldry and their children Brooke and Brittany; his cousin Kurt Johnson; his Uncle Lloyd/Pearl Ville and his cousins Jeff, Mike, Bob, Kevin and their families.
Very important in Andy’s life was our faith in God. Without it this last year would have knocked us all down. Be comforted to know that this undying faith in the Lord has now taken him to a place where he is no longer suffering, is finally at peace and off to his next Great Adventure.
God Bless you all.
Janiece Haug
17751 NE 90th ST. #C316
Redmond, WA 98052
In lieu of flowers please consider a donation to the Ben and Catherine Ivy Center for Advanced Brain Tumor Treatment. or to Lutheran Ministries Northwest http://www.lmsnw.org/giving.html.