Clifford Fossman Wisconsin native, Clifford “Cliff” Fossman, 86, died Friday, Sept. 25 in Anchorage, Ak. of heart disease.
Born in Racine on March 23, 1923, to Carolyn and Emil Fossman, he grew up in Amberg. When a teenager, he moved to Chicago with his mother, who had remarried. There he became acquainted with the colorful boxing champion and trainer, Johnny Coulon, and trained under him at his gym on the South Side of Chicago. Many famous boxers passed through Coulon’s gym, including Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney and Mohammed Ali. Fossman entered the Golden Gloves championship in 1943, and won the South Side of Chicago’s Novice Welterweight Division. He was well on his way to a promising professional boxing career, but with World War II raging he decided to interrupt his plans to enlist in the Army, where he served in Europe and the Pacific.
Upon his return to Chicago, he reconnected with Coulon who convinced him to resume a boxing career. He won 29 of his 33 matches, with one of those wins including a featured match in the 1950 All Star Boxing Show at the Milwaukee Arena headlined by Rocky Graziano. As a result, Coulon’s gym became a familiar place for Cliff’s mother, Carrie and a baby half-sister, Jeanne, whom Cliff had named after Jeanne Crain, his favorite movie star at the time.
He took his sister, Jeanne to Coulon’s to show her off and set her down in the corner of the ring while he worked out. She was not crazy about the arrangement, but did anything for her brother, whom she called, “Foofie.”
His destiny was not to be in boxing, however. After marrying Dorothy Gill of Chicago he returned to his college studies and earned a teaching degree from Butler University in Indianapolis, Ind. Soon after the couple was presented with an opportunity that would change their lives forever. He accepted an offer from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to teach in Alaska., with his wife, her nine-year-old son, Bill, from a previous marriage, and their one-year-old daughter, Cydney, the family headed to Alaska in 1954, five years before it was admitted to the Union as the 49th state.
His first teaching assignment was in a one-room schoolhouse in Klukwan, a small village in southeastern Alaska. He taught all subjects in grades one through eight to the children of the Tlingits. He immersed himself in his new environment and was given a Tlingit name.
Over his career with the BIA, the family lived in other locations, including Kaltag and Kwigillingok, small villages located on the coasts of the Yukon River and Bering Sea, respectively, later returning to Klukwan and finally settling in Haines. With a new daughter, Toni, and son, Stephen born, in addition to their home in Haines, they maintained an 80-acre farm nearby. Their children settled in Haines and Anchorage, Alaska and Seattle Wash.
With his pioneering spirit and accomplishments in Alaska, it seemed fitting that in 1990, he was selected for a walk-on part in the Disney film, White Fang, which was shot in and around Haines. He played Old Timer #1 and had one line: “About a mile, but it will seem like more.”
Fossman also coached Little League and played city league basketball and followed his children and grandchildren to their many sports events. His wife died in 1986 and the couple were cremated and their ashes were then buried together following a memorial service in Haines, Alaska on Saturday, Oct. 10.
Among his other adventures were travel by dog sled, learning the cultures of native Alaskans and his love of dogs. He had a talent of training dogs and was proud of achieving the rare feat of training a mixed-breed dog to lead his dog sled. The dog, named Spook, became his pet.
Survivors are his children, Toni DeWitt and Steven Fossman of Haines, Alaska, Cydney Terhune of Anchorage, Alaska and William Fossman Turnbull of Seattle, Wa.; eight grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; a half-sister, Jeanne Grunberg Nelson of Croton-on-Husdon, N.Y.; niece, Carolyn Nelson of Rye, N.Y.; and cousins Michal Zajac of Chicago and Wausaukee, Timothy Haley of Eau Claire, Mi., Elaine Smithers of Pewaukee, Arlene Flom of Iron Mountain, Mi., Virginia Radtke of Berlin, Kathy Kamke of Oconto Falls, Marilyn Rice of Appleton, Dwight Haley of Spokane, Wa., Duane and Dale Haley of Lewiston, Id., Ines Rose of Grangeville, Id. and Leola Broemeling of St. Clarkston, Wa. He leaves many cousins in Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Illinois, Texas and California and friends and colleagues.
Donations in his memory may be made to the Haines Little League, PO Box 1371, Haines, AK 99827.
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