Sherman Allison Olsen, 88, turned boyhood experience into a career

Sherman Olsen worked as a boy helping his furniture-making father in the small North Dakota town of Minot.

Often, in those days, such woodworkers were also the casket makers in their communities, and Sherman Olsen's father was no exception. So early in life the young Olsen learned something about that sideline.

Thus a seed was planted that later blossomed into a career.

World War II broke out, and Mr. Olsen had to make his first venture outside North Dakota. He enlisted in the Navy and qualified for pilot training in Corpus Christi, Tex., his first exposure to hot, humid weather. Then he was assigned to the Pacific theater, which was even steamier.

Mr. Olsen flew off the deck of the USS Yorktown, a carrier commissioned in 1943 and named after the gallant warship that was sunk during the Battle of Midway in 1942. Mr. Olsen's missions usually were to provide air cover for U.S. Marine amphibious forces intent on recapturing Japanese-held islands.

After the war, Mr. Olsen chose to settle in Atlanta, partly because he'd had his fill of North Dakota winters and partly because he wanted to learn the textile trade, and Georgia Tech offered courses on the subject.

Those were the days when returning servicemen could audit courses freely with the blessing of college administrations, said his son, Eric Olsen of Atlanta. So while his father wasn't a full-fledged student, he made a lot of friends at Tech's Alpha Tau Omega fraternity chapter, and they started calling him "Lee," a nickname by which many people knew him for the rest of his life.

At first he sold textiles, and then he saw an opportunity to combine his newly acquired savvy about fabrics and his recollections about casket making. In the late 1950s he established Olsen and Co.  in Lawrenceville, a textile manufacturing firm that concentrated on linings for caskets. Later, at the same location, he formed Piedmont Metal, which made exterior decorative hardware for caskets.

Mr. Olsen was a no-nonsense businessman, his son said. "For World War II pilots like Dad, being put at the controls of a hot, 2,400-horsepower Corsair fighter plane was an experience that made you mature pretty darned quickly."

His businesses prospered, enabling him to retire early and buy a winter home in Key Largo, Fla.

Sherman Allison Olsen, 88, died Tuesday at his Atlanta home of respiratory failure. A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Nov. 9 at Peachtree United Methodist Church. Southcare Cremation Society and Memorial Centers, Marietta, is in charge of arrangements. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations in his memory to Young Life Midtown, P.O. Box 724731 Atlanta, GA 31139.

Well before he retired, Mr. Olsen developed a passion for golf. He was an early member of the Cherokee Country Club and a founding member of the Atlanta Country Club. In addition, he helped organize the Atlanta Classic golf tournament, which began in 1966. "Sherm played integral roles in getting it started and keeping it going," said Joe Guy of Atlanta, past president of the Atlanta Classic Foundation.