| Notes |
- OBITUARY
Fritz Nachant; self-made man was pilot, hunter and entrepreneur
By Blanca Gonzalez
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
October 17, 2008
Fritz Nachant was about 8 years old when he traded in his violin for a hunting rifle.
His mother had bought the instrument for him a year earlier, and although he didn't like it, he practiced and played it for her.
But his love of the outdoors prompted him to swap his violin for a rifle at a pawnshop. Over the years he became an avid hunter, taking trips to Alaska, Siberia, Panama and Africa and counting Chuck Yeager and Gen. Jimmy Doolittle among his hunting buddies.
He helped start the Safari Club in Los Angeles in 1971. The L.A.-based group eventually became Safari Club International, a worldwide group that promotes hunters' rights and wildlife conservation.
A self-made man who didn't graduate high school, Mr. Nachant ran a successful contracting business for more than 30 years. He credited the youth organization DeMolay for putting him on the track to success.
Mr. Nachant died of heart failure Oct. 2 at San Diego Hospice. He was 91.
His daughter, Susan Lindsay, said her father was an entrepreneur from an early age, delivering newspapers on his bicycle when he was 6. By the time he was 14, he was selling newspapers to the Navy ships in the San Diego harbor, rowing his boat from one ship to the next.
He was a teenager when his mother encouraged him to join DeMolay. “He said he was a smart-alecky kid making money selling newspapers so he decided to look into it,” Lindsay said. “He felt he didn't have direction, but he knew he wanted to do something with his life. He said the values he learned (from DeMolay) helped form his success.”
As an adult, he became a Mason and a Shriner and enjoyed marching in parades and raising money for the Shriners Hospitals for Children.
In the mid-1940s, he began working in construction. He eventually started his own business after earning his general contractor's license and built many service stations and auto repair shops in the region, Lindsay said.
Early in his career, Mr. Nachant was advised by a friend to take up golf if he wanted to move ahead in business so he took his first golf lesson. After the lesson he went to nearby Gillespie Field to visit a friend who worked at the airport.
The friend told him he should learn to fly instead of learning golf and took him for a plane ride. “He started flying lessons and never picked up the golf clubs again,” his daughter said.
Mr. Nachant earned his pilot's license in the late 1950s and became an active member of the San Diego Sheriff's Search and Rescue Aero Squadron, volunteering to fly his aircraft to search for lost hikers and downed planes.
He stopped flying in the late 1970s but he made one last flight as a co-pilot when he flew to the North Pole at age 80.
Fritz August Nachant was born June 3, 1917, in San Diego to August and Elsie Nachant. He lived in the Los Angeles area for a time but spent most of his life in San Diego.
He worked for Consolidated Aircraft and became a foreman of the B-24 outer wing department before going into construction. He married the former Elise “Dede” Quitsow of San Diego in 1940. The couple had three children. She died in 1974. Mr. Nachant married Anna DeSimone in 1980.
He was a longtime supporter of the Salvation Army and the conservation group Ducks Unlimited.
Mr. Nachant is survived by his wife, Anna of San Diego, his children, Susan Lindsay of La Mesa, Sally Reynolds of La Mesa and Paul Nachant of San Diego; stepchildren, Claudia DeSimone of San Diego, Adrianna Issakov of La Jolla and Vanda Scates of Santee; eight grandchildren; five step-grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
A celebration of life is scheduled for 11 a.m. today at the Musicians Hall, 1717 Morena Blvd., San Diego.
The family suggests donations to San Diego Hospice, 4311 Third Ave., San Diego, CA, 92103.
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1917 - 2008 (91 years)
