Salute to an Alaskan legend:
This guy was a legend in Alaska. I knew his name because he created the ski jumping area in Anchorage, but apparently he was a pastry god and German soldier who was shot on six occasions. One time his binoculars stopped a bullet bound for his head. His biography is amazing and worth reading. The thing that got him in the end was tumbling down a flight of stairs in his wheelchair at age 99.
Karl Eid, a man who made cakes and pastries for Eisenhower and Hitler, who lifted culinary standards in Alaska and who all but invented ski jumping in Anchorage, died Friday at his Anchorage home. Eid packed several lifetimes into one before dying six weeks after his 99th birthday.
"What a giant of a man," said Jens Hansen, the owner of Jens' Restaurant and a longtime friend and colleague of Eid's. "And he kept on until the very end. On one leg. On no legs.
"I bow to him."
Poor circulation -- in part the legacy of his days as a German soldier, taking six bullets on six occasions during World War II -- cost Eid his legs later in life, one at age 75 and the other at age 90.
The loss of his first leg forced him into retirement as a pastry chef, but it didn't slow him down. He remained a regular piece of the scenery at the Karl Eid Ski Jumps at Hilltop Ski Area, named after Eid because without him, they wouldn't be here. Under Eid's direction -- some would even say at his insistence -- ski jumps were built at Hilltop. He took on the project more than two decades ago after a small hill at Alaska Pacific University was condemned, his son said.
It took years for the 60-meter jump to be added, but Eid waged a relentless campaign to make sure it was, charming and cajoling the city, private businesses and local ski groups into providing money, labor and support.
"He was the real spark plug to get (the ski jumps) going and to keep them going," said Dick Mize, a longtime member of the Nordic Ski Association of Anchorage. "Karl would certainly be the father of ski jumping in Anchorage."
No matter how cold or how icy it was, you could find Eid at the jumps. Leaning on either a walking stick or crutches, he stood at the bottom of the jumps and watched athletes that he recruited, coached and befriended as they took flight overhead.
"I remember the first time I met him. I was 9, and he ended up whacking me in the back with his walking stick and motivating me to go back up and jump again," said Alan Alborn, a two-time Olympic ski jumper from Anchorage who was Eid's pride and joy.
"For a little guy, that was straight and to the point. I went back up."
Eid was in good health the day of his 99th birthday, when about 30 friends celebrated with him at the D'Armoun Road home where and his wife, Anneliese, raised their son, Marc. Anneliese died in 2001.
"We had a picnic in his garden and served German stuff. I can't remember the last time I saw him laugh so hard," said Marc, 48. "He was as sharp as usual, witty and charming. Dad was doing fine. Everyone's always been amazed at my dad's health and how he's carried himself."
When he lost his second leg, Eid opted for a manual wheelchair, because it made him work harder and kept him more fit than a motorized one would have.
Five days after his birthday, he was on his porch in that wheelchair, doing upper-body exercises and breathing exercises, his son said.
"He dozed off in his chair, and the wheelchair and he tumbled down a flight of stairs and he ended up breaking his neck," Marc said.
Eid was hospitalized for 10 days and then returned home. He spent his final days in his living room, in a hospital bed, surrounded by 10 decades worth of memories.
Among the keepsakes: an old pair of binoculars that Eid said saved his life during the war. He was looking through them when an enemy bullet came his way. He lost a thumb, but the binoculars took the brunt of the damage and kept the bullet from going through his forehead.
Born in Germany's Black Forest on Aug. 1, 1909, Eid quickly developed two loves he would pursue his entire life -- sports and food.
Gymnastics, skiing and track and field were his athletic areas of expertise. Eid coached a number of German athletes to Olympic berths in 1936, the year the Olympics came to Germany twice -- to Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the winter and to Berlin in the summer. When the war came, he served 4 1/2 years and taught members of the Germany mountain ski troops how to ski.
Eid was certified as a master pastry chef in 1937 and after the war he opened a shop in Garmisch that he ran for 30 years.
"He was very famous in the town not only for having the shop, but because he made the first ice cream in Garmisch," Marc Eid said.
While still in Garmisch, Eid once baked a cake for Adolf Hitler. After the Germans lost the war, he was offered a baking job -- in lieu of prison -- at an American military facility. There, he concocted pastries for Gen. Dwight Eisenhower.
"He was very popular," his son said.
But popularity didn't make him a financial success, and 20-hour days took a physical toll. In the late 1950s, Eid decided to close his shop and move to America.
He lived briefly in Seattle -- where he met Anneliese -- and in 1959, Larry Carr convinced Eid to move to Alaska and start a bakery for Carrs grocery stores.
His impact on Anchorage's culinary scene was immediate.
He was the muscle behind the formation of a chefs' association in Anchorage and helped build the culinary program at the old Anchorage Community College.
"If you look back 20 or 30 years, the standards of chefs (in Alaska) were not that high," said Hans Kruger, the former owner of the Corsair Restaurant. "He was always the first trying to put the standards at a higher level."
Eid once brought home a gold medal for a complicated, many-layered cake he entered in a Florida culinary competition. He was known in Anchorage for his elaborate gingerbread houses and other sugary showpieces.
"Everything he made as far as sweets was perfect," Kruger said.
A memorial is scheduled for Oct. 11 at Hilltop's Karl Eid Ski Jumps.
http://www.adn.com/anchorage/story/528490.html
