Derek Dunford

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Gene Fedorowicz, 80 

On Thursday, September 10, 2020, Gene Fedorowicz, loving husband and father of three children, died at the age of 80. 

He was born Gene Lichtenberg on November 20, 1939 in Detroit, Michigan, son of Geraldine (Denyer). Raised and adopted by his loving father Henry Fedorowicz and his mom Gerry, Gene grew up in Detroit with his sister Lois. Nicknamed ""Chick"", Gene was known for his energy and his love of cars and mechanics. He served in the United States Army from1963-1965 in Germany. After a two-year correspondence during his time in the service, Gene married his sweetheart Rita Angelovic on April 30, 1966. In 1970, with a third child on the way, Gene and Rita moved to Gaylord to open Gene's Waterland Sports and raise their family in northern Michigan. Gene worked for Tooke Engineering on the oil derricks and later as a mechanic and truck driver. After retirement, Gene and Rita enjoyed traveling during the winters to southern Texas, Sedona Arizona, and Florida. Gene was tired of clearing all the snow and in 2017 he and Rita moved to North Port, Florida. 

Gene enjoyed everything outdoors. From winter days spent on snowmobiles and sledding hills to summers camping in the Shasta camper at various northern Michigan parks, Tennessee, Washington D.C. and other exciting destinations. Gene taught his children to work hard and play hard in the great outdoors. Gene was known for being a handyman who could fix almost anything and enjoyed helping others with their house projects. He loved his garage time, Corona happy hours, peanut M&Ms, golf, and Hallmark movies. Above all, Gene was devoted to his family: he loved hearing from his grandkids and spending time with them in Michigan and Minnesota, marveling at all of their accomplishments. 

He is survived by his loving wife of 54 years Rita, his three children and their spouses, Geriann (Bill), Jean (Arlo), Paul (Wanda), his 8 grandchildren, David, Kirsten, Jojo, Autumn, Amara, Daniel, Paul and Rita, his sisters-in-law, Irene, Marge, Annie, and Rose, and many nieces and nephews. He was loved by many, family and friends, who all remember him as an amazing man. 

He was preceded in death by his parents, Henry and Gerry, his sister, Lois, his childhood friend, Larry, and brothers-in-law, Bob, Phil, Grant, and Joe. 

A memorial mass is planned for Wednesday, September 16, 2020 at San Pedro Catholic Church at 10 o'clock a.m. in North Port, Florida. 

Condolences may be sent to 643 Alvarado, North Port, FL 34287. 

Eulogy for Gene Fedorowicz 

Compiled by Gene's children Geriann, Paul and Jeannie and his wife Rita. 

Written by his daughter Geriann

Last Thursday Gene Fedorowicz, passed away after a full and happy life, at the age of 80. It is hard to believe he is gone. He will be missed. We loved him immensely. How does one begin to capture who he was and the legacy he left? Our family has been together for a few days now telling stories and remembering. Here are few highlights. 

Dad was born Gene Lichtenberg on November 20, 1939, in Detroit, Michigan, son of Geraldine Denyer. Grama married Henry Fedorowicz when dad and Aunt Lois, were children. ""Hank"" was a loving dad who later adopted dad and Lois as his own. They grew up in Detroit where dad was known for his energy and his love of cars and mechanics. There are many stories about his shenanigans; getting up at 4am in the morning to work at the Creamery with his Uncle and his dad or skipping school to work on cars. Dad met mom at his sister's engagement party thrown by her work friends from People's Outfitting, where both mom and Aunt Lois worked. A short couple months later, dad started basic training. He served in the United States Army from1963-1965 in Germany. Rita and Gene wrote back and forth for two years. Mom still has the letters. On April 30, 1966, after returning home from Germany, Gene married his sweetheart Rita Angelovic. They bought their first house and lived on Blackmore in Detroit. 

In 1970, with two toddlers and a third child on the way, our parents left Detroit and their large extended family and many friends to live in Gaylord, Michigan. A bold move. It was my dad's dream to open Gene's Waterland Sports and our parents wanted to raise a family in northern Michigan. Dad sold outboard motors, boats and snowmobiles. We grew up playing in the store as young kids, with our dog Dobbie and her litter of puppies in a cardboard box in the corner. We lived in a single wide trailer until my parents could afford to build our family home at 724 West Pine Briar. 

Mom worked evenings as a waitress at the Holiday Inn. Dad worked on the oil derricks. This was during the oil industry boom in the 1970s and 80s in northern Michigan and later dad was a mechanic and truck driver for Tooke Engineering. We all remember the smell of dad's work clothes when he returned from working on the derricks. Mom recalls hosing the greasy clothes off in the yard. Jeannie would sit with him at the table while he ate dinner after our bedtime. We would visit him at Tooke Engineering as kids and we all remember the grey green Stanley thermos of coffee that he took to work with him every day. Dad and Mom worked hard. It's no wonder each of us kids had jobs the minute we were old enough to work; Jeannie at La Senoritas, Geriann at Busia's restaurant and Paul at the Holiday Inn. 

Dad loved everything outdoors. Growing up in Pine Briar neighborhood, the woods behind the house were our playground. On winter days mom would put on her red snowmobile suit and dad would pull us kids in a sled behind the red Chaparral snowmobile. We rode to the sledding hill in the back woods where we would sled with the Galloway family or cousins warming ourselves at a bonfire where we ate hotdogs and drank hot chocolate. Cousin Monicia remembers how Uncle Gene would carry her up the sledding hill because she didn't want to walk. Geriann was especially excited the day that the whole family was equipped with cross-country skis. On weekend days the entire family could be seen at Pine Barron skiing one of the 2-K loops or on a big day skiing the 11-K loop at Pidgeon River over streams and stopping to eat the salami sandwiches in the woods. 

Music was a big part of life in the Fedorowicz family. Anyone who has visited the house on Pine Briar or on Manuka Lake knows that Dad left the radio on in the garage all day long tuned into the local country music station. We listened to 8 track cassette tapes playing Johnny Cash Walk the Line and Bobby V Bouncing Ball on road trips in the blue and gray full-size van pulling the Shasta camper loaded with kids bikes and an aluminum fishing boat on top. 

There were many trips made in that Shasta camper to Washington DC, Tennessee, Illinois, and Cedar Point Amusement park. Summer weekends were also spent driving to Port Austin to visit Grama (dad's mom). Dad and Uncle Larry would take us fishing on the dock in Lake Huron. We got up before the sun, fished for the perch that bite best in the rain, and came back to clean the fish and eat a breakfast of eggs and toast. 

Dad taught us a lot about family and how to help each other and be there for each other. This included extended family. We all remember trips to the BIG city of Detroit to visit the Costa family where we would sleep upstairs and going to see Aunt Lois and Uncle Larry in Mount Clemens. We grew up with a large extended family even though we were living up north. Our Grama, my dad's mom, lived with us until her passing in 1981; except for the summers, when she lived at the cottage that my dad and his dad built for the family. 

Dad always had a pickup truck, standard transmission, sometimes with a plow. His grandson David recently bought a pickup and the smell of the cab reminds Geriann of cold winter days spent sitting in the warm cab of dad's truck as he plowed driveways. Sometimes Dad let her work the shift as he changed gears. It is no surprise that Paul bought his first car, a gold Buick Skyhawk, before he was 16 years old. Dad and Paul never seemed to tire of talking about trucks or driving through the used car lots of Gaylord on Sunday after Mass at St Mary's. Geriann would have to say that her favorite vehicle was the red standard transmission jeep with the AM radio that we could drive with the top and doors off. 

Every Fall dad enjoyed deer hunting camp with Uncle Larry, Uncle Lenny, cousin Paul and cousin Pete. They would be gone for a week. The Fedorowicz women would say that they played more cards than hunted. However, we all remember the day we came home from school to find a deer hanging from the tree that we used for games of Ali-Ali-Umph-Free. Dad always wanted a hunting dog. Mom recalls how dad got his first hunting dog, Dobbie, in 1966. Dobbie, who was the family dog for 16 years, would see Dad get the hunting rifle out and run to hide under the bed. ""I aint' going!"" Then there was the springer spaniel, Daisy. Jeannie remembers that Daisy was better at nipping the heels of the neighborhood boys on bikes than hunting. There was bird season as well when dad and his friends Charlie Galloway and Pat Esson would take the dogs into the field to hunt partridge. When Paul got older he joined the hunting camps while us girls stayed home with mom. Dad's childhood friend, Kenny Koppistch, would come up every fall and rent the cabin on Old 27, bringing us full-sized KitKat bars and yellow packs of Juicy Fruit gum. 

When our parents moved to Manuka Lake, dad joined the neighbors in their battle with the Canadian geese who were tired of clearing their lawns of goose poop. The day the Culligan salesman came to the house was memorable. The geese came filing onto dad's grass causing dad to get up. To the alarm of the Culligan salesman, Dad was heard loading his shot gun in the backroom while Rita yelled ""No Gene, no"". The geese were frightened away as dad shot the rifle into the air. 

Gene was known for being a handyman who could fix almost anything and enjoyed helping others with their house projects. The smell of fresh cut lumber has always reminded Geriann of dad and how she would stand in the garage holding the board while Dad used the loud circular saw to make his cut. Dad taught us how to paint walls, build shelves, harvest firewood. He carried a knife in his pocket everywhere he went. You never know when you will need a knife to clean your nails or cut some string. Dad loved his garage. Every house that dad owned had a large peg board in the garage organized with all his tools. The lawn chairs were placed in the bay of the garage facing out, with a view of the driveway, where dad sat drinking Corona visiting with family, friends and neighbors, talking about life, or more likely, the weather. 

Dad was a tender-hearted man who loved his family above everything. He loved hearing from his kids and his grandkids, marveling at all of their accomplishments. There were many years of fun summer gatherings at the home on Manuka Lake. Kirsten, Autumn, David and Jojo designed elaborate ""extreme"" croquet games on the lawn and caught frogs in the muck. The Greenberg grandchildren, or should we say Jean's husband Arlo, built huge sand sculptures every summer. David remembers driving the boat with Grandpa to the island where they would swim and explore. All the grandchildren knew that if they went in the closet under the stairs they would find Grandpa's peanut M&Ms in the candy jar. No one knows when Dad started watching Hallmark movies but we all have watched dozens of Hallmark movies when visiting mom and dad. Mom recalls seeing her Geno smiling as they sat together watching Hallmark. Little Rita was impressed with Grandpa's breakfast routine while visiting him in North Port. He would sit at the table reading his paper and Grandma would bring him eggs while the morning news was playing on the tv. 

We all know that Grandpa Gene loved his golf. After his heart surgery in 2017, when the occupational therapist asked him what he wanted to be able to do, he told her, ""cut my grass and play golf"". Little did mom know that she would be his golf partner for the next year, driving the cart around the Par 3 in Gaylord as dad played 9 holes. More importantly Mom had the job of helping Dad find the little white ball in the sea of green. 

One cannot capture everything there is to say about dad is this eulogy. I will say that Gene Fedorowicz, our dad, lovingly called Geno by our mom and many others, will be immensely missed. Mom said to Dad on Thursday, as she sat with him after his passing, ""we had a good life together and we both knew it"" and that she loved him very much. That says it all. Service Information

Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2020

Time: 10:00 am - 11:00 am

San Pedro Catholic Church

Address: 14380 Tamiami Trail, , North Port, FL, 34287

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