Charles F. “Fred” Kohler

Charles F. “Fred” Kohler, 79, of Ash­ley, passed away Thurs­day (Oct. 25, 2012) at Mt. Carmel East.

Fred was born 1933 in Mar­ion to the late Harry and Helen (Debolt) Kohler. His sis­ter, Car­olyn Davis, died in 2006.

Fred had quite a var­ied life leav­ing Oak­land School in Mar­ion as a fourth-grader; he joined the Ash­ley class that grad­u­ated in 1952 from Elm Val­ley H.S. As the Kohler fam­ily moved to the fam­ily farm dur­ing World War II, they used some old horses until they could use a trac­tor. He wasn’t fond of horses! Vehi­cles were more of an inter­est to him. As a teen, he rode a scooter to the R.B. Pow­ers Co. where he printed rib­bons on a gas pow­ered printer. He hung out at a Delaware auto body shop learn­ing prep and paint­ing of vehi­cles. After grad­u­a­tion he worked at Hughes Keenan con­struct­ing Divco side step­milk deliv­ery vans and cherry-pickers. He then went to Miller’s John Deere Imple­ment Co., then to Westbrook’s Hard­ware in Ash­ley, where he set-up and ser­viced farm imple­ments, deliv­ered and installed appliances.

Dur­ing Fred’s 34 years at Whirlpool in Mar­ion, he did many types of jobs end­ing his years there as a microwave and range engi­neer. He was asked to work at Recre­ation Unlim­ited shortly after retir­ing from Whirlpool. He really enjoyed work­ing there for about 10 years doing a vari­ety of projects. Fred was always happy to help any­one. He con­tributed to the Ash­ley com­mu­nity by serv­ing sev­eral terms on Ash­ley City Coun­cil, the Water Board and helped lay block for the Ash­ley pool, located old water lines, even coax­ing the police cruiser to run a lit­tle longer. Many in the com­mu­nity relied on him to keep their mow­ers and cars run­ning. He also taught a small engine class at the Delaware JVS.

His life­long hobby was restor­ing old vehi­cles, boats, scoot­ers, bikes and fur­ni­ture. Mem­ber­ships included: Antique Auto Club of Amer­ica, Newark Vibra­tors, Scat­tered “A’s,” Clas­sic Scooter Club, Delaware Co. Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety, Del. Co. Pio­neers, & First Fam­i­lies of Mor­row County. In the late ’50s, Fred took an empty piece of land and touched every inch of it. He planted the grass, trees, built a house and build­ings (garage first of course), thus cre­at­ing a good place for his family.

He is sur­vived by his wife of 59 years, Crys­tal Good­man Kohler; his chil­dren, Shirley Noble, Dale (Pat Down­ing) and War­ren (LeeAnn); grand­chil­dren, Shane (Beth), Don­nie, Tod, Ash­ley (Bil­lie Mayes) and Michael; great-grandchild, Zen­non; stepgreat-grandchildren, Brit­tany, Alex, Emily and Ema; and brother, Tom (Sindy) Kohler.

Fred’s fam­ily will greet friends from 3 to 7 p.m. on Mon­day, Nov. 5, at the Ben­nett, Brown, Rod­man & Sny­der Funeral Home in Ashley.

If you have a mem­ory of Fred you’d like to share, please bring it to the call­ing hours or send to a fam­ily mem­ber for a mem­ory book.

Memo­r­ial gifts in his name may made to the Delaware County Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety, P.O. Box 1126, Delaware, OH 43015 or Ash­ley Worn­staff Library, 302 E. High Street, Ash­ley, OH 43003.

Con­do­lences may be expressed at snyderfuneralhomes.com.

Posted by Staff Reports Obits on Nov 1 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.