Michael Dennie Wendt

Michael Dennie Wendt was born February 9, 1938 in Sandpoint, Idaho. His father, Wilfred H. Wendt, had moved with his family from Marquette, Michigan to a village (Dalkena, Washington) on the Pend Oreille River near Sandpoint in 1930. Soon after the Norida mill in Dover, Idaho sold its machinery to the Ochoco Lumber Company in 1938, Michael, with his young father, his mother (Lois M. Madden Wendt) and three siblings, followed the mill to Prineville, Oregon. Michael lived there from age 3 to 19 and graduated from Crook County High School in 1956. Michael subsequently worked at Prineville Men’s Wear and Peoples Department Store in Tacoma before graduating with a degree in secondary education from Oregon College of Education (now Western Oregon University) in Monmouth in 1962. That was followed by a Masters in secondary education in 1965 from OCE. While at Monmouth, Michael served as student body president his junior year, 1960-61. He received the OCE Delmar Dewey Award at graduation made to an outstanding male senior in 1962.

His teaching career started in Woodburn in 1962 and ended 45 years later at Jesuit High School in Portland, Oregon. He taught in Woodburn for four years; North Marion for a year; Shoreline, Washington for two years; Lake Oswego for 24 years, with 22 at Lakeridge High School; and at Jesuit for 14. He retired in 2007. His teaching journey included two stints with the National Endowment for the Humanities, one studying Tocqueville at University of California at Santa Barbara (1983), the other at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth near New Bedford with a focus on Herman Melville (2001). Michael was named Jesuit’s Educator of the Year in 1998. He suffered a cardiac arrest in 2005 in class at age 67 just before a scheduled dramatization of Arthur Dimmesdale’s heart attack at the end of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. With no pulse, a student and others provided CPR while the school’s new defibrillator brought him back.

Michael was among the original staff at Lakeridge where he served 14 years as chair of the English department. He worked with others (students, parents, teachers) to determine the name of the school, its mascot, and school colors. While at Lakeridge, Michael signed on for a long and active participation for the Oregon Council Teachers of English and its board. His high school teaching focused on Moby Dick, Latin and Greek prefixes, suffixes and roots, and his traditional reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Bells” complete with cape and candelabra every year just before Halloween.

While Michael’s career in education dominated the professional part of his life, his most proud accomplishments rest with his immediate family. He met his wife, Judith (Judy) Schmidt Wendt on a blind date in 1966. She had just returned from a year’s study with the University of Portland’s Salzburg program. They married  August 5, 1967 at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Salem, Oregon. Besides being an at-home mother, Judy helped raise other children in her child-care business for 30 years. Some of her “little ones” would eventually become Michael’s students.

One of Michael’s goals was that his children become one another’s best friends. The children, all a year apart, include son Dennie, married to Meagan Tuhy Wendt; daughter Liesl Wendt Justus, married to Robert Justus and Sabrina Wendt Flamoe, married to Mark Flamoe. The Wendt grandchildren include Justine and Desmond, the Justus grandchildren are Sean and Bria, the Flamoe grandchildren are River and Eli. He became a great grandfather when Bria welcomed her son Shiloh in July. The grandchildren called him “Captain.” His email address always featured “Ishmael.”

Michael’s parents preceded him in death, as did his three brothers—Curtis, Steven, and Douglas—and his sister Patricia. He is survived by two sisters, Rosalie of Port Orchard, Washington, and Suzanne of Puyallup, Washington as well as numerous nieces and nephews.

Anyone wishing to donate to the remembrance of Michael’s life can do so to the Michael Wendt Endowment Fund for Financial Aid at Jesuit High School. His family will celebrate his life on November 23 at 11 a.m. in the Jesuit High School Student Center in Portland. All are welcome.