Chauncy King Lively

Chauncy Lively, our good friend, fellow board member, renowned fly tier and angler, died February 25 from complications of pneumonia after a long and courageous battle in Munson Medical Center in Traverse City.

My knowledge of Chauncy’s life has been gleaned mostly from the many stories he has told me and more recently from his daughters, Anne and Claudia. Chauncy and Marion were great story tellers and I’ve been fortunate to hear them tell many. This account is followed by brief stories from his daughters and one from a man who became his best friend in Michigan: Father Pat Cawley. Chauncy Lively

Chauncy was born in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, May 23, 1919, the son of Chauncy C. and Grace (King) Lively. He grew up in Waynesburg in western Pennsylvania where his father was a psychology professor. Chauncy attended the college where his father taught and there, while taking freshman English, he met his future wife, Marion Aiken.

In college Chauncy had a band: "Kay Lively, His Trombone and Orchestra." I’m told by his daughters that Marion loved to dance but rarely got a chance because Chauncy was usually playing and if he wasn’t, he was standing by the bandstand watching the musicians. In his junior year he tried out for the Larry Funk Band--which I understand was well known nationally. Chauncy then toured with them all over the East Coast.

I learned recently while talking to his daughters that, in Pennsylvania, the family members, people he knew growing up, in school, or in the army--as Claudia says, "his early years"--called him Kay including Marion. In Michigan he was always known as Chauncy, or, rarely, Chaunce. I never heard anyone call him Kay and that included Marion. Those, in Pennsylvania, who met him later in the 50s--his fishing friends, those with whom he worked--called him Chaunce, or even another nickname, Chance.

With degrees in science and psychology, but with a passion for music, he entered the army in 1941 and spent most of his service in Texas as a Master Sergeant and band leader. He married Marion in 1943 and after the war they returned to Pennsylvania and lived in the Pittsburgh area. He worked for many years in radio and TV as a music arranger, both scoring music and writing original music. He also played in many of the big bands when they appeared in the Pittsburgh area.

Later as the big band era ended and changes in television eliminated local programming, Chauncy had to change professions, moving into mortgage banking and insurance and worked in this profession for many years before he retired in 1984.

Though Chauncy loved fishing while growing up in Waynesburg, Marion introduced him to fly fishing. After the war, high on their priority list was a need to find some good fly rods. Chauncy has told me a little of the trial and error searching they did until they made contact with Paul Young in 1949. First came the bamboo fly rods. Then with ever-increasing correspondence, a life-long friendship developed with Paul, Martha Marie and their family. In the early 50s the Lively family began going to Michigan to fish with the Youngs on the Au Sable River. I also understand that Paul and Martha Marie made a few trips to fish such waters in Pennsylvania as the Letort and Falling Spring.

In the eastern states Chauncy and Marion fished all the great streams: the freestone streams in the Poconos, the gentle chalk streams and spring creeks in the Cumberland Valley, and the big rivers of the Alleghenies. We in Michigan were fortunate that they fell in love with the Au Sable and as early as the mid 70s they acquired some property on the lower North Branch. When Chauncy retired, they built their home there and moved to Michigan as soon as it was finished.

Unfortunately, they had only a couple of years before Marion became seriously ill and then disabled. This did not daunt them and they enjoyed the river and their families, traveling often to Pittsburgh, until Marion died in 1995.

Chauncy had a serious setback a few years earlier when he fell and broke his hip. That injury limited his fishing somewhat but not his zest for life and his independence.

Chauncy was a member of the first elected board, in 1987, of The Anglers and has remained so since. The first issue of The Riverwatch appeared in the fall of 1988. Chauncy soon had a regular column in our newsletter (and so did Marion, under the pen name of Effie Merrela) and has been a generous and important contributor throughout the past eleven years. Our readers know very well his reputation as a fly tier and angler. Chauncy Lively’s Fly Box is a standard reference for all good tiers. He also had a regular column on fly tying in Pennsylvania Angler (eight issues each year) since before 1970. He continued this column when he moved to the Au Sable and was working on a current one when he became seriously ill in January.

Chauncy also was a member of Trout Unlimited and the Federation of Fly Fishers.

He is survived by Anne and Claudia, one granddaughter, Elizabeth, two sisters, Grace and Patricia, two brothers, John and Richard, and a longtime fishing companion, his brother-in-law, George Aiken, known as Aikey. He is also survived by Bonnie, a companion cat he rescued from a shelter. Bonnie will become a member of Claudia’s family. A memorial service is planned in Pittsburgh in late spring. The family is also planning a memorial service on or near the Au Sable in mid-summer.

His daughters request that memorials be directed to The Anglers of the Au Sable or to the Animal Shelter of Crawford County, Project Fund, P.O. Box 384, Grayling, MI 49738.

Chauncy and his wife, Marion, were beautiful people, a joy to be with. They enhanced the lives of everyone they touched.

Moreover, Chauncy was important to all who love the Au Sable. I first met Chauncy at an Anglers meeting about four years after he and Marion moved to Michigan. The only excuse I can offer for that time lapse is the divergence in our fishing habits. I liked to fish after dark to avoid the aluminum hatch on the Mainstream and Chauncy probably fished no later than dusk and then mostly on the North Branch where he lived.

We became friends when he became a board member of The Anglers. When we began The Riverwatch, he became a major contributor. As the editor I then had the good fortune to become a better friend. Over the years, as our friendship matured, whenever Judy and I visited the river together we enjoyed the easy hospitality of Marion and Chauncy. It wasn’t often enough. If I came by myself, all I wanted to do was fish, usually on the weekends, and then when I retired from work it was for longer periods, but fishing was foremost on my mind.

Even so I had the blessing of Chauncy’s friendship for a few years--too few. We of course talked often about fishing and from Marion and Chauncy I heard most of their stories from Pennsylvania. Moreover, in their Riverwatch stories, I learned even more. But we talked much more about other subjects. Chauncy, erudite and literate, was well read and informed about conservation, the latest good books, politics, and just about any subject you could name. He loved rivers and trout; he must have been one of the most creative fly tiers of our generation; his photography technique was superb; his taste in classical music profound. His writing was skilled, careful, generous, without error. He did have one flaw, however: he wasn’t a very good cook. But ... even Chauncy couldn’t be perfect.

Will we miss him? You bet, like the trees miss the wind, like the rivers miss the trout. Norman Maclean ends his story with the unforgettable phrase, "I am haunted by waters." As our friends leave us, this being haunted becomes more pervasive and, at times, almost intolerable. There is a stretch on the lower North Branch where I won’t be fishing for a while. Maybe I will sometime when the sorrow diminishes and the remembrance becomes more a caress. When I return to this special place, I will find Chauncy’s presence there, in the gentleness of the wind,the strength and comfort of the trees, the charm and energy of the river,and in the beauty of the trout. RWOL

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