Clyde E. Alho

Memorial Location

COLUMN:   ROW: 24

  • Ratings: F3C, AM3C, AM2C, AM1C, Aviation Metalsmith First Class V6
  • WWII, enlisted February 5, 1942 at NRS, Chicago, Illinois
  • Completed service school: NTS at Great Lakes, Illinois
  • Off duty educational courses completed: U.S.A.F.I. Metallurgy & Heat Treatment
  • Served: Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois; Quonset Point, Rhode Island; Argentia, Newfoundland;  Norfolk, Virginia
  • Honorable Discharge, Great Lakes, Illinois, October 2, 1945
  • Re-enlisted: May 24, 1947
  • Class V6, USNR for inactive duty to serve for four full years, stationed at the Glenview Airbase, Illinois

Born July 7, 1921 in Brentwood, Wisconsin and died February 13, 1998. Interred, Hillcrest Cemetery, Bessemer, Michigan.

Father of Clyde R. Alho.

Clyde spent his childhood years with his parents on a farm in North Bessemer, Michigan. When his father began working at the Puritan Iron Ore mines, the family moved to Puritan Location in Bessemer. Clyde had no desire to work in the mines and left home with a buddy at the age of 14, hopping a freight train and heading west, to work in the open spaces on a ranch. On a trip back to Bessemer, he stopped in Chicago, Illinois where he met and later married LaVerne Jessie in June 1942. They had two children, a daughter, Charlotte born in 1943 and a son Clyde Russel born in 1947. His love of open spaces led the way to his life time career as an Ornamental Iron Worker, working in the open air, creating the metal framework for staircases in several tall buildings in Chicago.

Clyde’s love of his childhood home in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan continued, so each summer he took his family to share in his Finnish heritage: sauna, coffee, cardamom bread and fishing for Brook trout. His childhood friend Tulo, had a cottage on Oxbow Lake in Presque Isle and while spending weekends there, a stop at Gunner’s Bar (now the Yacht Club) often occurred. When the bar came up for sale, Clyde’s inner calling to the Northwoods took hold and with some convincing with LaVerne, they bought the bar in 1968 and moved north. LaVerne passed away in 1992 and Clyde returned to the Chicago area to stay with his daughter. An old friendship with Irene (who owned a summer place on Annabelle Lake, Presque Isle) materialized and they married in 1993. They spent time between the Northwest suburbs of Chicago and Presque Isle until he passed away.