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Alvin Hogge

(Family photo)

For so many years, Karen Smith believed that her older brother, Alvin Hogge, had led an unremarkable life.

He'd lived here and there. Done a bit of this and that. Divorced, his grown son, grandson and extended family lived more than 1,500 miles from the place he'd most recently called home.

He died unexpectedly last year, at age 63, from surgical complications.

In such times a family quite naturally turns reflective, sorting through memories, events and places, trying to figure out what a life means, and -- perhaps more importantly -- what constitutes a so-called successful life?

Money?

Fame?

Power?

Hogge had none.

Then, the day after he died, they found the letter.

Smith, a decade younger than her brother, was sorting through Hogge's belongings to look for important papers. Inside his desk drawer she found a letter typed on a single sheet of paper. She discovered her brother had a remarkable secret from the years he'd spent in Portland.

And now Smith, who lives in Montrose, Iowa, is trying to find out what happened that night on West Burnside Street when her brother saved a young woman's life.

"If my brother hadn't died," Smith said, "I might never have known."

--

The mystery began 10 months ago when Smith received a call from Hogge, who'd broken his thigh bone and needed surgery. He hoped family members would come to Las Vegas and be with him as he recovered. His mother, Smith and another sister were driving through Nebraska when Hogge called on Smith's cellphone to say he was still in the hospital and out of breath. A second call came when they were cruising through Colorado. A doctor said Hogge died when a blood clot broke loose.

"A woman asked what mortuary I wanted to send his body to." Smith said. "I told her I had no idea. We just kept driving to Las Vegas."

As the miles passed, Smith thought about her brother's life. The last time she'd seen him was when he'd returned home to Iowa a few years.

"We grew up in a town of about 200 people," Smith said. "It was small-town life in the Midwest."

And as they sped toward Las Vegas, Smith knew there'd be no impressive obituary written for her brother, certainly nothing that would make the people back home sit up when the pastor officiated the funeral. As far as she knew, the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him was holding his own in a game of one-on-one basketball with boxing champion Mike Tyson.

"He lived a simple life," Smith said.

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After high school in a small Iowa town, he moved to Des Moines, and hooked up with the phone company. That job ended when he hurt his leg in an accident. He spent time as a cutter at slaughterhouse and later took classes at a community college before getting married. The couple had a son. They divorced.

He moved on, to the West. He worked security at truck stops. He sold cars more than a few times. When he landed in Nevada, Hogge eventually went to school to be become a dealer at a Reno casino. In time, he drifted to Portland, where he sold cars again and rented room in a house. The best his sister can remember was that Hogge was here for just a couple years, 1991 and 1992. Or maybe it was 1992 and 1993.

"But he got a bad case of bronchitis and the doctor said he needed to get back to the desert climate," she said. "He moved to Vegas and got a job running the craps table at a casino."

--

The letter found in a desk drawer.

His family arrived in Las Vegas the night after Hogge died. They began looking for papers his son would need.

"I looked in his desk and figured I'd find a car title," Smith said. "Maybe bank statements or old birthday cards. He had none of that."

All she found was the letter:

Dear Mr. Hogge

You are truly my Hero. We tracked you down again but, don't worry. It looks like I'm well on the road to a full recovery from the accident. Though its been over a year now since the night that changed my life and could have well ended it. I tried to write this but my hand is still to shakey so mom is typing it for me.

She wrote that she'd never seen Hogge, only spoken him on the phone to thank him. She said her car, involved in an accident, spun down the road, coming to rest near where Hogge's car was stopped, and then caught fire.

God must have known you would be his messenger that night. We're so thankful he chose you ... You bravely went into action. They said you didn't hesitate reaching through my car's window to extract my limp body.

The woman said if not for Hogge, she would not have been able to send the letter.

I know you were ill and had to leave here but, if you ever get to Portland. Please use the numbers I'm sending to look us up. I'd love to meet the man who saved my life that night on Burnside avenue. You'll always be our HERO.

Thanks so much

Danni West.

Smith shared the letter with her mother and sister, and then got busy making final arrangements. Fifty people attended his funeral.

The pastor, who'd learned about the letter from Smith, asked if she could have a copy.

She made it the foundation of a service for a most unremarkable man.

"She read the letter out loud," Smith said. "She made the point that Alvin had never flaunted it. He never told anyone about it. She said he was a humble man. She asked the people to think about what kind of man would be like that."

Afterwards, Smith said, those in attendance told her that they'd learned something about Alvin Hogge. His remains were laid to rest in the family's section -- he was the third generation -- in the Richland Township Cemetery, in an Iowa town of about 200 people, about three miles from where he'd been born.

And that was the end of it.

Until a few months ago when Smith -- finally over grieving for her brother -- read the letter again, multiple times. She looked for clues. There were no dates. Her brother had not kept the telephone numbers mentioned in the letter. By studying the sentence structure, and realizing a mother had typed the letter, she assumed Danni had been young.

She decided to find Danni West. Why?

Looking for Danni West

Do you know Danni West?

Does she still live in Portland?

Contact me at: thallman@oregonian.com or call 503 221-8224.

"I don't know," Smith said. "Maybe just to tell her that he'd died."

But, of course, it goes deeper than that.

"Did Alvin change the course of her life?" Smith said. "Does she think about him? Was she married? Did she have children? What happened to her because of my brother?"

She turned to the Internet, did a search and found a couple listings and addresses for a Danni West.

"I sent out a cards," she said, "but they came back non-deliverable."

She sent a copy of the letter to The Oregonian to see if the paper's library system had a story on the incident. Nothing turned up.

The Portland fire department had no record either. With no specific date -- and since records weren't computerized back then -- it would be impossible to find a report.

Alvin Hogge and Danni West.

One dead.

One vanished.

"These two people came from different backgrounds," Smith said. "They never should have crossed paths."

But they did.

--Tom Hallman Jr.

(503) 221-8224; @thallmanjr