Alfred Fleury, 103; Lasting Imprint Is Left Throughout Mercer Island

Alfred J. Fleury, who died last week at 103, once said that "civic spirit had been growing for 600 years in the civilization I come from, so I'm an activist. I've always felt it was up to me to get things done."

He died Thursday, March 25.

For 44 years on Mercer Island he got things done:

-- With the fire district, which he served as secretary-treasurer.

-- City incorporation, for which he worked tirelessly.

-- The first city council, to which he was elected in 1960.

-- The library, where he wasn't too proud to climb the roof and clear a gutter.

The stooped, gnomelike figure with bald head, wire-rimmed eyeglasses and thick Swiss-German accent seemed to be everywhere.

As secretary to the island's Chamber of Commerce, he was its representative in the late-1950 campaign to clean up Lake Washington.

And his imprint can be found on virtually every island civic betterment: roads, utilities, playfields, schools.

From the time Mercer Island acquired a community newspaper, Mr. Fleury was its most inveterate letter-writer, sounding forth on matters large and small, from national issues to renaming a local street.

When he and his wife, Olive, left the island for a Seattle retirement home in 1977, Mr. Fleury still was trying to get the state and federal governments to finish Interstate 90, a project he followed with keen interest despite failing hearing and dimming eyesight.

He stayed active politically almost to the end, serving as a Democratic precinct committeeman in Seattle as he had on Mercer Island. At age 100, he was still voting in every election.

"Al wasn't one to look backward and think the old times were better times," said former Mercer Island Mayor Ben Werner, who knew Mr. Fleury as a neighbor and civic official. "He realized there had to be changes, and he'd jump in and see if he couldn't guide those changes for the better."

Mr. Fleury was born in Bern, Switzerland, where from early childhood he worked in his parents' hotel, listened to customers discuss world affairs in German, French and English, and read from the 40 newspapers and 29 magazines hung from racks in the taproom.

His parents sent Alfred to work in England, Ireland and Italy, thinking the experiences would enhance his worth to them. But seeing the world gave their boy other ideas.

A Swiss Army reservist when World War I began, he was called up Aug. 4, 1914, and sent to guard the northern border. When it became evident the Germans would not invade, Mr. Fleury was released from active duty.

On the pretext of going to England to work in a war factory, he took off for the United States in 1915.

Mr. Fleury earned a business degree from New York University, where he met Connecticut-born Olive Owen, whom he later married. In 1928, "following the advice of President Hoover that everything was hunky-dory, the moon hung high and prosperity would last forever," he wrote later, "I invested all I had in a hotel in Watertown, South Dakota."

The hotel failed the following year, along with the stock market and the national economy.

Remembering Seattle from bachelor days, when he had hitchhiked across the country on a dare, Mr. Fleury brought Olive here, "where there were few jobs but also less dust."

"I tried unsuccessfully to peddle Model A Fords, brushes, coal, and popcorn on street corners," he later recalled. He worked for the Works Progress Administration for $55 a month, clearing Seward Park and Gallagher Hill Road on Mercer Island.

Skill with figures won him county and state accounting jobs, and from 1942 until his retirement in 1955, he was a storehouse manager for Richfield Oil.

In 1933, the Fleurys had put together $1,000 to buy a waterfront acre on the south end of Mercer Island, a community of 1,100 people at the time.

They cleared the lot themselves and spent about $2,600 to build a two-bedroom home overlooking Lake Washington and Mount Rainier.

For 63 years, Mr. Fleury avoided returning to his native Switzerland. "Nyaah," he would say; "If I go back there, they will throw me in jail for deserting from their army!"

Finally, in 1980, he made the trip alone, at the age of 90, to see his sister, Emilie Spreuermann, then 86. "We were afraid he might be overcome with nostalgia and stay in Switzerland," said his son. "But he came back on schedule and reported that "it's dark and dingy and old back there! This is my home."

Mr. Fleury is survived by his son, Peter Fleury, and daughter-in-law, Carol Fleury of Auburn; and by a granddaughter, Danielle B. Fleury of Yakima.

Services will be at 11 a.m. Saturday, at Bleitz Funeral Home, 316 Florentia St., Seattle. The family suggests remembrances to the Brad Graham Fund, Mercer Island Department of Public Safety, Fire Division.