Alfred Horst Durichen
Sept. 24, 1941 – March 23, 2019

Alfred was born in Bochum, in the former West Germany, and came to Canada on the S.S. Bremen with his family in 1952, settling in Oxford County through a British aid program to wartime displaced people. He attended elementary schools near Innerkip and Drumbo and secondary schools in Woodstock, where he was an active member of Bethany Lutheran Church.

After working at various computer jobs in Toronto, he moved to the Marsland Company in Waterloo, working in audio component quality control and as one of their staff Cessna pilots, flying executives to North American and international meetings.

After marriage in Woodstock to Pauline Finch in 1971, they made Kitchener-Waterloo their permanent home and Alfred decided it was time to keep his feet on the ground. His natural technical skills led him to work in electronic design at Space Circuits (Waterloo) and later ITT (Guelph). One of his smallest circuit boards was among thousands that NASA incorporated into later generations of their historic Apollo lunar landers.

When ITT moved to the U.S. during the mid-1980s, both Alfred and Pauline decided they wanted to remain Canadian. So he changed direction and qualified for a provincial re-training program as a long-distance transport truck driver. After working several years each for System 55 (Mississauga), S&L Trucking (Cambridge), several private K-W owner-operators, and Mill Creek Motor Freight (Ayr), in 1997 he landed his “dream job,” driving for Challenger Motor Freight (Cambridge) until mandatory retirement in 2006.

Every year at Challenger he received one or more awards for outstanding performance in safety, accident-free miles, fuel-saving, and other company incentives. If there was a prize for impeccable paper-work, he would likely have won that too. He often helped fellow drivers navigate and fill out forms; as a result they gave him the CB “handle” of Professor, but he preferred Star-Captain.

He took on that nickname after a chance meeting with one of his heroes at a large U.S. truck stop. Pulling into the lot for a break, he noticed a light blue VW Rabbit bearing the license plate “COSMOS” and a familiar figure stepped out and headed in the same direction. Alfred and famed public television science personality Carl Sagan (1934-1996) chatted over coffee and then went their separate ways. No autograph, no famous words; according to Alfred they were just two guys who loved to talk about space.

Shortly after SETI@Home was launched at Berkeley CA in 1999, Alfred signed on with thousands of volunteers around the world who donated spare computing capacity on their home PCs to help process radio signals from outer space; they were looking for “anomalies” that might indicate broadcasts by intelligent life. (The 1997 film Contact, starring Jodie Foster, is based on the SETI movement.) Alfred was looking forward to his 20th anniversary as a SETI member coming up in May, but didn’t quite make it.

Although he never worked full-time in computer programming and repair, Alfred was greatly valued as a software and hardware “whisperer” who could persuade dead and dying PCs back to life through careful electronic surgery and “organ transplants” of new chips, drives, mother-boards, etc. Starting in his late teens he taught himself arcane programming languages like Cee, FORTRAN, BASIC, and ASCII and during the late 1970s put together an Altair 8800, the first true kit-assembled brand of home computers. He also kept an obsolete Radio Shack TRS-80 machine running for 25 years doing nothing but drawing snowflakes, just because it “deserved to live.”

Alfred loved music and always sang in a church or community choir from early childhood, as well as occasionally (with gentle persuasion) playing the bass recorder. He especially enjoyed early sacred vocal polyphonic music and high baroque organ works. While he never aspired to playing the pipe organ himself, he loved working inside the “monarch of instruments” as much as he did computers. In 2007 he helped to rescue and rebuild in a Kitchener church a complete organ by the renowned Canadian designer Gabriel Kney.

Since 2012, Alfred was an active, versatile and innovative member of Mount Zion Lutheran Church, Waterloo, serving in the choir, on Church Council, Property Committee and in many unofficial ways, wherever and whenever his skills were needed. He helped convert the church’s lighting to energy-efficient LEDS, was always investigating ways to reduce the building’s carbon footprint, enjoyed operating audio and screen projection systems, presenting pre-worship announcements, and quietly doing small but meaningful things to make everyone feel more welcome and included.

Alfred was pre-deceased by parents Alexander Fritz Durichen and Elisabeth Jackert Durichen. He is survived by younger siblings, sister Ellenore (Ontario) and brother Gerhard (British Columbia) and their families, wife of 48 years, Pauline Finch of Kitchener, and two very sad rescue cats, Yoda and Junior.

One of Alfred’s favourite sayings was Carl Sagan’s “we are all made of star stuff.” He felt it should have made it into the Bible.

* * *
Ach Herr, lass dein lieb Engelein
Ah Lord, let your dear angels
Am letzten End die Seele mein
at my final hour carry my soul
In Abrahams Schoß tragen,
to Abraham’s bosom,
Den Leib in seim Schlafkämmerlein
while my body in its narrow chamber
Gar sanft ohn eigne Qual und Pein
gently without pain or torment
Ruhn bis am jüngsten Tage!
rests until the last day.
(J.S. Bach, St. John Passion, Chorale No. 40)
* * *

A memorial service in celebration of Alfred’s generous life will be held on Saturday, June 1, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. in Mount Zion Lutheran Church (29 Westmount Rd. S., Waterloo - www.mzlc.ca). In keeping with his and Pauline’s wishes, Alfred’s body was donated to the University of Waterloo School of Anatomy to help others learn.

In lieu of flowers, donations to any of the following would be gratefully appreciated:
Mount Zion Lutheran Church: Memorial Fund, or Music on the Mount Fund
Canadian Lutheran World Relief (where most needed)
The Working Centre, Kitchener: Computer Literacy and Access Programs