William "Bill" Fredrick Holdner's Obituary
William Fredrick Holdner was born on March 18th, 1926. He was number 6 out of 9 children in his family. He was raised on the Canadian Prairies, twenty-five miles (which was a full day’s horse and sleigh ride) from Young, Saskatchewan Canada. There was no electricity or water in his house and all 7 boys slept in the same room under a 10” comforter of duck feathers. Their Fox Terriers kept their feet warm at night. At 9 years old, during the Great Depression, he walked a mile every day to school to clean and start the fire in the one room schoolhouse. He did this to earn money to help the family keep their farm. At 15 he went to live in a boarding house in Saskatoon to complete his high school education. During this time, he got a job delivering meat by bicycle. He attended the University of Saskatchewan majoring in mathematics and chemistry and attended the Royal Canadian Naval training program. He was called to serve in the Navy spending 6 months on the ship until the war ended. When the ship docked at Prince Rupert, he and his buddy Eric Hartz left the ship without pay because Eric had an uncle who owned a sawmill there and hopefully a job. After walking 10 miles to the sawmill, they discovered the mill was on strike. The next day they both found jobs at the War Assets Co. having to ask for an advance for money so they could eat. Shortly afterwards he then went back to Prince Rupert, working at various sawmills, until he ended up in Williams Lake B.C. After 3 weeks of 56 degrees below zero weather, he made a decision to come to the United States. Later in life he told everyone that this was one of the best decisions that he ever made.
It took two years working two jobs at the same time -one for a charted accountant and one for the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration. He lived in a room costing $5.00 a month and eating a 5 cent can of tomatoes for dinner every night to save the $1,500.00 needed to immigrate to the U.S. without a sponsor. In July 1950 he left Vancouver, B.C. on a Greyhound bus to come to Portland, Oregon all by himself. Upon arriving in Portland, he walked across the street finding a room at the YMCA until he could find work.
He eventually got a job at Alcoa in the lab. On his first day they needed someone in the accounting department and noticed he had worked for an accountant in Canada. That twist of fate changed his life forever. He then went to Multnomah College night school studying accounting and was eventually able to sit for the CPA exam to become a Certified Public Accountant. At college he met Patricia Irish whom he married on June 18th, 1955. They had two children, Laurie in 1958 and Randy 1959, they were married 42 years. It was also during this time that he took a job at Touche Ross, a National Accounting Firm where he did the audits of Franz Bakery, Charles F. Berg, and Kaiser Foundation Hospital. In 1960 he started his own accounting firm grossing $3,600.00 the first year. Kaiser Hospitals came to him to consult as to why they could not make a profit. In 1965 he leased the first IBM main frame computer in the City of Portland to develop a computerized billing system for Kaiser Hospitals and he also founded Data Systems, Inc. Shortly after Data Systems Inc. went public in 1968, he bought a 4-acre farm in Scappoose. The original cattle operation started with 3 Polled Herefords-2 cows and a bull.
With his son Randy, they farmed together forming Holdner Farms. Together they expanded the farm, raising and selling over 10,000 animals from the farm in 54 years.
His son Randy was killed tragically in a farming accident in July 2021. Both Randy and Laurie developed a love of farming from their father.
Through all of his endeavors and recent hardships he worked at his CPA firm Holdner, Backstrom, Baum & Company. He saw himself as a true professional with a strong work ethic, never charging for phone calls or meetings. He was proud of the office building that he built for Data Systems Inc. in Portland, and all the accounting systems that he had developed. He was way ahead of his time to computerize the work. He maintained loyal clients, some for 50 years. One client recently wrote “…. I loved his passion for fighting for the “principal” of whatever cause he felt was an injustice…” and “…. filling the void of a man who lived “life large” is going to be hard….” He worked until a month before his death at 96 years old.
After his divorce in 1997 he spent the last 25 years with Jane Baum who had been his business partner since 1974. They worked together everyday but were lucky enough to travel to Switzerland, cruised from London to St. Petersburg, traveled to Canada, Williams Lake and made many visits to cattle ranches.
He died October 7th, 2022 with his daughter Laurie and Jane by his side.
He is survived by daughter Laurie Holdner-Wilson, granddaughters Jenny Rafferty (Ryan Rafferty) and Emily Holdner, great grandson James Rafferty, Debra Parmley (Randy’s partner), and his longtime partner Jane Baum.
In lieu of flowers a donation can be made to the William F. Holdner Memorial Scholarship Fund at the Oregon Society of CPA’s. https://www.orcpa.org/ed-foundation/contribute
A graveside service will be held Saturday, October 15, 2022 at 2:00 PM, for those not able to attend Columbia Funeral Home will be streaming it on their Facebook page.
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