Gustav Maurits Bleckmann

January 15, 1933 – September 13, 2026

In het huis van mijn Vader zijn vele woningen.
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.

Johannes 14:2

Na een lang en rijk leven is van ons heengegaan
After a long and rich life, he has gone from us

mijn lieve man, onze vader en opa
my dear husband, our father and grandfather

GUSTAV MAURITS BLECKMANN
Maurits

Born Bondowoso, Java, 15 January 1933
Died Portland, Oregon, 13 September 2026

Eldest child of Nicolaas Bleckmann & Johanna Helena Fortuijn Droogleever, and predeceased by his siblings Klaas, Joke & Ben.

Gillian Bleckmann

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Obituary

Maurits was born on 15 January 1933 in Bondowoso, on Java, the eldest of the four children of Nicolaas Bleckmann and Johanna Helena Fortuijn Droogleever. His father’s work in the colonial civil service moved the family every year or two, across Java, Celebes (now Sulawesi), Sumatra and finally Borneo.

In 1942 the family was evacuated to Java. His father, required to remain at his post in Balikpapan, did not survive the war. Maurits spent the following years interned by the Japanese at Bangkong in Semarang. From the age of eleven, for the last year of the war, he was separated from his mother and his two youngest siblings.

The family reached the Netherlands in 1946. He and his brother Klaas made up four lost years of schooling in a single year, and he went on to train as a mechanical engineer at ‘s-Hertogenbosch.

He emigrated to Canada in 1955, met Gillian in Vancouver, and married her in 1965. They settled in Oregon in 1968, where he spent the rest of his working life in process control engineering in the pulp and paper industry.

In 1977 he began to remodel his home to accommodate the growing family. The house more than doubled in size but was not completed before the children grew up and moved away. Nevertheless he took pride in that he had built the house with his own hands. After relocating constantly as a child, he remained in his home for the rest of his life.

Maurits enjoyed woodworking, photography, automobiles, sailing, good food, and monitoring the stock market, especially gold stocks and investments.

He is survived by Gillian, their three children, and their six grandchildren.

Funeral

The Funeral Mass will be offered on
Friday, October 9, 2026, at 4:00 p.m.
St. John Fisher Catholic Church
4567 SW Nevada Street, Portland, Oregon 97219

He has been cremated. His ashes will be interred privately at Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery at a later date.

In lieu of sending flowers, consider making a donation in his name to St. John Fisher Church or a charity of your choice.

Rest in peace
Rust zacht

Photos

Visit the photo gallery. If you have a photo of Maurits you would like to share, please email it to siblings@bleckmann.us and we will add it to the gallery.

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In place of a guestbook at the funeral, we invite you to share a memory, story, or message below. It means a great deal to our family to read them.