Ronald Eugene Pesch's Obituary
RONALD EUGENE PESCH
Born: August 16, 1937
Died: June 10, 2023
Ronald Eugene Pesch was born in Stevens Point, Wisconsin on August 16, 1937. Fittingly, it was a Monday – a day of work. His mom, Marie, was one of three children born to Henry and Mary Pesch. Our Dad never knew his father. (But thanks to DNA testing, he may have finally found a strong candidate).
Dad was raised by his grandparents – hard-working, blue-collar folks. By all accounts, it was a modest childhood. Marie’s brother, Dad’s Uncle Pete, and his bride, Estelle, lived across the street. Older Aunts and Uncles from both near and far popped in and out of Point. It was a place he loved. As kids, the great majority of our family vacations were comprised of visiting relatives in Milwaukee, then heading north to Point - the ‘City of Wonderful Water’ – located in Central Wisconsin, 100 miles directly west of Green Bay. (Dad’s souvenir from one of those trips was an in-need-of-restoration 1937 Ford).
The story, if we have it correctly, is that our Great Grandma Mary was born in the house she and her husband, Henry, shared on Shaurette Street. The house was next to railroad tracks, owned by the Soo Line.
Marie had married Tom VandenBosch, and when Dad was somewhere around age 14 or 15, he joined the family in Michigan, first in Battle Creek, and later in Muskegon, where they lived in the Forest Homes development, located east of Harvey and south of Marquette.
By 18 or so, Dad had joined the Air Force, ultimately landing at Kinross, near “Sault Sainte Siberia” and Goose Bay Labrador. There, he “nearly froze to death” with many others, making friends and battling with those in charge.
Upon release, he returned to Muskegon. Marie’s other brother, Forest – known as ‘Forrie’ by most – ran a parking garage, and later a gas station, then finally a service station, all located on the city's Western Avenue. Dad would work with his Uncle, in various capacities, across the coming years.
Dad’s resume of making ends meet included a stint living in Chicago, working initially as a currier making medical deliveries, (a job he quit when a visit to one facility included delivery of a package down a series of dark, door-filled hallways to a dead-ringer for Boris Karloff), a line job at Curtiss Candy Company, (after which he vowed to never eat another one of their candy bars), running a gas station on Ottawa Street in Muskegon, and a job running a second-hand furniture store (which, the story goes, handled the sale of a love seat that was originally owned by Muskegon’s famed Hackley family).
In 1961, Dad married our Mom, Elsa Marie Koski. Together, they would create a family of five.
His job from his earliest years of marriage involved traveling to Milwaukee for the week to work for Wisconsin Motors, a subsidiary of Continental Motors, staying with relatives, then traveling back to Muskegon on weekends. (That’s the job where he had to retrieve and machine 105-pound castings. Dad was strong as an ox.)
Ultimately, he landed a position with Continental “on the hill” back in Muskegon. While there, he earned certifications from Michigan State University’s School of Labor and Industrial Relations between 1966 and 1968. (Those classes seemed to have spurred a strong interest in politics.)
As many will recall, working for Continental in the 1960s was a precarious job to hold in Muskegon’s boom-and-bust economy, and eventually, he was among some wave of cuts. That news, as I remember, arrived via CB radio somewhere along US 31, just as we were headed out of town, headed toward Wisconsin. Our parents’ debate on what to do was short and we continued down the road. Dad would work to find a new job when our vacation was over.
He reinvented himself as a railroad engineer. Mom was a stay-at-home, stretch-the-dollar, volunteer-where-needed Mom. She would eventually take those skills to the workplace, employed by Michigan State University’s Cooperative Extension Program as a nutrition aid in later years. (There she traveled around town assisting young families learn those skills.)
The railroad job, as those who have done that work can attest, might be first shift one week, third the next, followed by second shift the following week. Home-base might be Muskegon, Holland, Grand Rapids, or elsewhere, depending on the seniority board. “Bumps” as they are called, meant someone with more seniority was taking your job, and you then needed to “bump” somebody with less seniority out of their job. The ultimate starting-and-stopping points for the train you were running might be anywhere along the Chesapeake and Ohio – later the Chessie System line – in Lower Peninsula Michigan, or along the path to and into Chicago. Trains ran seven days a week. Pay fluctuated based on the job you held.
As kids, we could sometimes watch Dad at work, as, occasionally, the job he was on ran along the C & O tracks that ran next to our house in Muskegon. Because of his work, especially when we were younger, Mom would have to remind us to play quietly. At any hour of the day, Dad might be sleeping, in preparation for whatever train he was working.
With five kids, there were side hustles, as they call them now. “Ron’s Antenna and CB Sales” included the sale and installation of CB radios and gear, car stereos, and occasionally, the building and placement of television antenna towers in the days before cable TV. One short-lived venture involved the sale of single-serving pizzas and pizza ovens to bars and restaurants. Dad ran for political office on more than one occasion. Life was always interesting at our house.
There wasn’t a ton of disappointment when Dad was taken out of service by the railroad because of hearing loss. The cab of a 100-to-200-ton diesel locomotive, with a warning whistle and compressed air braking, is an extremely loud and stressful place to go to work each day. Depending on the speed, stopping a train can require more than a mile of distance. A financial settlement was reached, and, as he always said, the move gave him his life back.
Still in his 50s, he had more time to tinker and enjoy life. With a brother-in-law, he began to acquire and reassemble salvaged vehicles, repairing the wrecks, having them re-certified and placing them back on the road. He frequented auctions, yard, and estate sales with Elsa, and in later years, friends. Cameras, watches, BB guns, tools, lawn mowers, snow blowers, a house - and all its contents – and, well, pretty much anything else that caught his fancy would be bought and sometimes flipped. Dad had nothing against retailers. Simply put, clearance ranks, scratch-and-dent, approaching expiration dates, and items-in-need-of-fixing – were his favorite departments. He simply loved a good deal.
When Elsa became ill and needed to enter a home, he visited her daily. They were married for 54 years prior to her passing in 2015.
Always on the go, he started his days at local restaurants, meeting the guys for coffee. From there, the day was an adventure, popping in for visits with friends and family. In his eyes, a knock on the door was better than a phone call.
He never met a dog that didn’t like him. Of course, that might have been related to the fact that Dad always carried a seemingly endless supply of dog treats wherever he went.
Ron exited this world on Saturday, June 10, 2023, in Muskegon, with a pair of replaced shoulders, a new hip, a Watchman device for the heart, and a pair of bad knees. He was still tinkering until the end.
Thanks to his life with Elsa, he had a hand in the arrival of seven grandchildren: Camry, Cayla (Kyle), Leigha, Jamie, Evan, Josh, and Sean, as well as twin great-grandsons, Liam and Owen.
Ron is survived by his children: the first round included Ronald Dean Pesch, Laura (Greg) Juhnke, and Terri (Steve) Slater. Then, to the delight of all, came Kurt (Liz) Pesch, and Pete Pesch. All reside in Michigan. He is also survived by a brother, Ronald Ziwisky of Wisconsin; half-sisters, Wanda Grieve of Maryland, and Lorraine Wise of California, and sisters-in-law, Bette Westgate, Peggy Koski, and Sylvia Koski, all of Michigan, Abi (Tom) Hudson of Florida, and Maija (Jon) Hayes of Alaska.
In addition to his wife, Elsa, Ron was preceded in death by his mother, Marie VandenBosch-Green, in-laws Arne and Lucy Koski, and brothers-in-law, Karl Koski, A.J. Koski, and Jim Westgate. A MEMORIAL OPEN HOUSE will be held from 4-6 p.m. on Friday, June 23, 2023, at The Lee Chapel of Sytsema Funeral & Cremation Services, 6291 Harvey St., Norton Shores, MI 49444. Cake and Dad’s favorite beverage, coffee, will be served. MEMORIALS in memory of Ron may be directed to the Stevens Point Youth Baseball Association’s ‘Ma’ Pesch Fund or Noah Project. You may sign his online guestbook at www.sytsemafh.com
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