James Edward ‘Jim’ Church

James Edward “Jim” Church, 80, of New Dover died Sat­ur­day (May 19, 2012) at his home sur­rounded by his large, lov­ing fam­ily, fol­low­ing a hard-fought bat­tle with cancer.

A life­long mechanic, he owned and oper­ated Church’s Garage in New Dover for 34 years where he served his cus­tomers repair­ing and main­tain­ing autos, trucks and trac­tors. His busi­ness began in 1978 when he and his son opened the shop as Jim and Mike’s Garage. Prior to estab­lish­ing his New Dover busi­ness, he owned and oper­ated the Gulf Ser­vice Sta­tion at the cor­ner of Third and Main streets in Marysville and the Sin­clair Ser­vice Sta­tion at the site of the present Journal-Tribune build­ing. He was a 1950 grad­u­ate and a star bas­ket­ball player from Belle­point High School. When he wasn’t play­ing ball, he was work­ing on the fam­ily farm. A vet­eran of the U.S. Army, he served as a sergeant dur­ing the Korean War. He was a mem­ber of Amer­i­can Legion Union Post 79, VFW Post 3320, Delaware Eagles Aerie 376 and Benev­o­lent and Pro­tec­tive Order of Elks Lodge 1130. He enjoyed fish­ing, bowl­ing, golf­ing, trap shoot­ing, stock car rac­ing, horse­shoe pitch­ing, casi­nos and Michi­gan foot­ball. Most of all, he was a devoted hus­band, father, grand­fa­ther, great-grandfather, brother, uncle and friend. He was born Jan. 2, 1932, in Gal­lipo­lis to the late Wal­ter Edward and Flossie Vir­ginia Nor­ris Church.

He is sur­vived by his chil­dren, Cindy (Ben) LaWarre, Deb­bie Yasko, Patty Church and Mike (Kathy) Church, all of Marysville; eight grand­chil­dren, Heather (Ed) Lowe, Joel (Sharon) LaWarre, Lori (Eirik) Pot­ter, Tammy (Shane) Pounds, Amber Church, Kylie Yasko, Austin Yasko and Savan­nah Ulsh and her boyfriend, Kyle Bran­del; eight great-grandchildren, Hunter, Emma, Alex, Zane, Leah, Nathan, Haley and Skyler; three sis­ters, Pauline Cahoon of Mil­ford Cen­ter and Aldena (Low­ell) Tay­lor and Sharon (Butch) Don­ahue, both of Rad­nor; broth­ers– and sisters-in-law, Dar­ryl (Sharon) Dav­en­port, Garth (Linda) Aldrich, Vir­ginia Dav­en­port, Alli­son Dean, Susie Mat­lack and Sheila (Lee) Mil­li­gan, all of Delaware County; and many nieces, nephews and devoted friends.

He was also pre­de­ceased on May 14, 1998, by his wife of 45 years, Eve­lyn Pauline Dav­en­port Church; a sis­ter, Vir­ginia Dou­glas; and a brother, Bobby Dean Church.

The fam­ily will receive friends from 2 to 7 p.m. today at Under­wood Funeral Home where an Eagles memo­r­ial trib­ute will be held at the end of call­ing hours and where funeral ser­vices will be held at 11 a.m. Wednes­day. The Rev. Wayne Engle will offi­ci­ate and bur­ial will be beside his wife at Mt. Her­man Ceme­tery. Mil­i­tary hon­ors will be con­ducted by the Union County Mil­i­tary Funeral Honor Guard. Pall­bear­ers will be Garth Aldrich, Joel LaWarre, Eirik Pot­ter, Kyle Bran­del, Shane Pounds, John King, Dar­ryl Dav­en­port and Austin Yasko. Hon­orary pall­bear­ers will be Mark Kreis, Char­lie Shope, Ron­nie New­land and Ed Lowe.

Memo­r­ial con­tri­bu­tions may be made to Union County Can­cer Soci­ety or Lov­ing Care Hospice.

Con­do­lences may be expressed to the fam­ily at underwoodfuneralhome.com.

By LIZ ROBERTSON

Staff Writer

Posted by Staff Reports Obits on May 21 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.