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, Ky., 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 board member 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.
His granite was 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; and his three amazing grandchildren, who felt so fortunate he was their Grampa, Katie Heaberlin, a NICU nurse and mother of 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 nicknamed Tiny, who was definitely not tiny but he joked, was warm. From there, he wrote his new bride the most beautiful love letters, saved then by Sue, and savored now by his children and grandchildren.
His love of food and especially sweets was legendary among those who knew him. 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 and loved a good game of Bridge or Gin Rummy, and was still beating visitors days before he passed. 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.
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. He was a skilled investor and dispenser of much sound monetary advice. And 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. Yet he 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 okay, 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, Vt.; daughter, Julia Heaberlin and son-in-law, Steve Kaskovich of Grapevine; granddaughters, Katie Heaberlin and wife, Michele Cashman of Essex Junction, Vt.; Laura Heaberlin and husband, Nathan Mauser of Grand Isle, Vt.; grandson, Sam Kaskovich and fiancée, Risa Brudney of Denver, “little sister” Mikie Haney of Ironton, Ohio; beloved cousin-in-law Marcella Browning of Louisa, Ky.; and many nieces, nephews, and cousins who laughed at his jokes.
It takes a village for a socially extroverted, perennially hungry man in his nineties 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 Chuck 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).
Hawkins Funeral Home Decatur | 940-627-5959 | Hawkinsfuneralhome.com
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