Charles "Chuck" Louis Heaberlin

Charles Louis “Chuck” Heaberlin -- father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and loving husband for 70 years -- passed away on March 3 at age 95, while under hospice care following a brief illness.

Born in Russell, Kentucky in 1930 to Alberta and Herald Heaberlin, Chuck lived in several locations in Illinois and Texas with his wife and family before settling in Decatur for the last 55 years of his life. He worked several years as a research chemist for the Pure Oil Company near Chicago, before relocating his family to Texas to accept a management position in the fledgling subsidiary POCO Graphite, where he ascended the executive ladder to retire as Assistant to the President.

He was a long-time member of the First United Methodist Church of Decatur, a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, and served on the boards of several community institutions including the Decatur Public Library and the Wise County Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse.

But to those who knew him, he was so much more. A friend once described him as “granite.” And in many ways, he was. Physically gifted, he was a high school standout in track, basketball, and football. As a 16-year-old senior, he once scored six touchdowns in the opening game of the season, garnering AP headlines as the “best performer” in the state of Ohio. He later admitted to being worried that his relatively new girlfriend, Sue, who had never seen him play before, might expect this level of heroism at every game. In spite of less stellar performances, she stuck with him, and when they were both 20, married him.

He had arms like rocks that sanded and refinished the old ceiling beams and floors of his house, room by room, until they gleamed. Hands that built his daughter’s dollhouse, a backyard swing, a sandbox, and bookshelves to hold an eclectic book collection. Legs that ran track at Miami University of Ohio, where he earned a degree in chemistry, and kept him moving for 95 years.

Chuck Heaberlin was granite, forged out of a difficult childhood. Abandoned by his father as a child, he was raised in the Great Depression by a single mother on a home economics teacher’s salary. In his nineties, Chuck was still pained by the childhood memory that when the school he was attending would let out for summer vacation, his mom would move to another district where school was still in session, for the extra pay and free child care.

He had a deep and abiding love for his family: his wife, Sue, for whom he was a paragon of devoted love and care during her final years of dementia; his children, Doug and Julie, in whom he instilled a strong work ethic, a love of filets charred and a little rare off the grill, and the "joy" of family road trips and state parks; and his three amazing grandchildren, who felt so fortunate he was their Grampa: Katie Heaberlin, a NICU nurse and mother to his two beloved great-grandchildren, Anya and Evie; Laura Heaberlin, a poet and musician whose beautiful voice was background music in his final hours; and Sam Kaskovich, an emergency room doctor who inherited his lefty hand, love of science, and competitive spirit on a baseball field, where his Grampa watched almost every pitch.

He was an Army veteran, drafted almost immediately after his wedding to serve during the Korean conflict and narrowly missing being sent into action. He did his basic training in Pennsylvania, where he recalled spending cold winter nights in a small tent with a fellow soldier named Tiny, who was definitely not tiny but, he joked, was warm. From there, he wrote his new bride the most beautiful love letters.

His love of food and especially sweets was legendary among those who knew him. He made it clear to all that apple or coconut cream pie with a flaky, homemade crust was a straight line to his heart. He never met a biscuit he didn’t like. One of the things that would make his day in his last years was Erien Lee’s cornbread, which he would smash up in a glass of milk. He introduced his grandchildren to his questionable “milk on the rocks” drink and the less controversial peppermint stick ice cream. His family sometimes joked that he was made up of 60 percent Walmart pastries.

He was a skilled card player who loved a good game of Bridge or Gin Rummy, whom you could not beat without a battle. Seven days before he passed, he whipped his daughter roundly in two games. His granddaughter Katie was his fiercest competitor, who could match not only his card smarts, but his level of trash talk, and adopted his signature move, after drawing a card that would likely end the game, of sliding it dramatically into her hand with an elbow, so your opponent could start to worry. Chuck ruefully remembered the time his son-in-law Steve sat down to play a game of Gin with him, saying he didn’t remember exactly how to play, then ginned after one draw. Less painful was the memory of the pumpkin pie Steve brought for dinner the first time they met, which was Chuck’s first inkling that this might be the man for his daughter.

He was a jokester and a tease all his life, full of quips to friends and strangers, bombastic narrations, silly T-shirts, and quick-witted replies. In his final hospital days, he asked one of the nurses if the big red call button would bring the president of the United States, and if not that, would she come to scratch his middle toe. Many years ago, during family road trips, Chuck would occasionally say, “I think I’ll write a song,” and then pretend to spontaneously compose forties classics such as “Accentuate the Positive” or “A — You’re Adorable.” (His young son, a fan only of sixties pop music at the time, originally thought these songs so terrible that it seemed entirely possible he had indeed made them up on the spot.)

Chuck was a seasoned investor and dispensed much sound monetary advice, not always taken by his more spend-thrifty children. He taught his granddaughter Laura to calculate a tip as a child. Throughout his life, perhaps as a result of his impoverished childhood, he was a notorious penny pincher, always seeking out a good deal, leaving those who knew him well shaking their heads at times. (Don’t even ask his family what he called “the tab”—let’s just say you didn’t want to be on it.) But his parsimoniousness allowed him to retire at 56 and belied a big heart. He used the wealth that resulted in part from his economizing to give generously to many worthy causes.

He was a man who believed that you should never think you have all the answers or have nothing left to learn. During a period of delirium during his final days in the hospital, when people may reveal some of their inner world, he accessed a lifetime amalgam of Christian scripture and life experience to deliver an articulate sermon about how we could learn from all religions, how any person could teach us something, and on the never finished task of learning to become a better husband, father, supervisor, and person.

He lived through The Great Depression, World War II and the Holocaust, the Korean conflict, Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Civil Rights Movement, the assassinations of JFK and of Martin Luther King, Jr., Watergate, 9-11, the COVID pandemic, his wife’s dementia, and his own. And yet he was an optimist and held onto his faith and the certainty that his soul would meet his wife’s again. In his last years he would still reassure his daughter that the world was going to be OK, despite all the apparent evidence to the contrary. He was a Democrat who loved Republicans, and a Democrat whom Republicans loved. He was perhaps the only person in Decatur who could plant a Beto sign in his front yard and not have it removed overnight. He transcended the time and culture in which he was raised to live a life of tolerance, without racism or prejudice, and, in truth, didn’t have to work that hard to achieve it. It’s who he was. And given the poor role model of his own father, Chuck became a rock of stability for his family and his community.

He was preceded in death by the love of his life, Sue Heaberlin, and many, many other dear friends and family, the unfortunate downside to living an extraordinarily long and healthy life.

He is survived by his son Doug Heaberlin and daughter-in-law Martha Heaberlin of Underhill, Vermont; daughter Julia Heaberlin and son-in-law Steve Kaskovich of Grapevine; granddaughters Katie Heaberlin and wife Michele Cashman of Essex Junction, Vermont, Laura Heaberlin and husband Nathan Mauser of Grand Isle, Vermont, grandson Sam Kaskovich and fiancee Risa Brudney of Denver, “littlesister” Mikie Haney of Ironton, Ohio, beloved cousin-in-law Marcella Browning of Louisa, Kentucky, and many nieces, nephews, and cousins who laughed at his jokes.

It takes a village for a socially extroverted, perennially hungry man in his 90s to remain happy and in good health in his own beloved house until almost the end of his life. Our family is grateful to so many who provided this support and care.

In particular we would like to thank caretakers Melissa Ledgerwood and Brenda Miller, as well as Tara Shetler and Anna Coker, for providing love and companionship and food that wasn’t powdered-sugar donuts; Janelle Gardner, generous friend and neighbor whose wonderful cooking Chuck adored; Juvenal Morales, jack of all trades and master of many, who kept Chuck’s house from imploding and kept the yard looking like someone lived there; and amazing, tolerant friend of the family Miguel Suarez, who spent hours of time in the porch swing with Dad discussing the news of the day and life in general, providing intellectual stimulation and friendship in addition to practical help with anything that needed attention.

We are also grateful to hospice specialist Dr. Ralph Cox, palliative care specialist Dr. Justin Chan, the kind and very competent nurses at Baylor, Scott & White Hospital in Grapevine and the staff at Silverado Southlake Memory Care, all of whom provided compassionate care not just for Chuck, but for his family during a sudden, difficult time.

Very special love to earthly angel Erien Lee, who kept her good eye on him these last years and would stop by with homemade treats and her own grandchildren for him to love, and to the otherworldly angel he said appeared in the corner of his hospital room toward the end. It was a wonderful life.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you donate to one of Chuck’s favorite causes: the Decatur Senior Center, the Decatur

Public Library, the Wise Area Relief Mission (WARM), the First United Methodist Church of Decatur, or the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP).