Andrew J. Liszkai, Jr.

Andrew J. ‘Jim’ Liszkai Jr., age 74, of Chester­ville, died peace­fully Mon­day, Octo­ber 22, 2012, at his res­i­dence sur­rounded by his lov­ing fam­ily fol­low­ing over a ten year bat­tle with ALS.

On Jan­u­ary 5, 1938, Jim was born in Grove City, Ohio, the son of the late Andy Sr. and Lucille (Miller) Liszkai.

Leav­ing the Grove City school sys­tem just before grad­u­at­ing to join the U. S. Army, Jim served on the Engineer’s Corp. and was sta­tioned in Alaska to help build roads and bridges to get­ting mil­i­tary vehi­cles all the way through Alaska to the border.

Upon his hon­or­able dis­charge, Jim returned to Colum­bus where he met a young lady at the old South Hei­del­burg bar, Maryanne Nord­strom, and the rest was his­tory from there. After a three year courtship, Jim and Maryanne were mar­ried on Octo­ber 23, 1965, at the Rocky River Methodist Church. They have cher­ished their 47 years of mar­riage together.

For over 25 years, Jim worked as a heavy machine oper­a­tor for Lennox Indus­tries in Colum­bus. Later, he worked for C & H Man­u­fac­tur­ing in Mar­ion for sev­eral years until his retire­ment in 2002, due to his being diag­nosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

A man of strength and courage, Jim fought this hor­ri­ble dis­ease for over ten years, always tak­ing life ‘one day at a time’.

With a love for the out­doors, Jim was a proud Cub Mas­ter for Pack 52 in the Chester­ville area, teach­ing his ‘kids’ to love and appre­ci­ate nature and his­tory. Some of his proud­est moments were the times that it lit a spark in his kids, which thrilled him. He also enjoyed join­ing Moun­tain Men Groups and the Ninth Infantry of Vir­ginia groups with their out­door mil­i­tary re-enactments.

An avid reader, Jim enjoyed both read­ing and col­lect­ing any book he could get his hands on, with some of his favorites being any­thing regard­ing his­tory, home improve­ment, gar­den­ing, and sports, espe­cially about the Buck­eyes.
A joy­ful and happy per­son, Jim always found a rea­son to laugh and often was quite ornery.

He will be dearly missed by his beloved wife, Maryanne Liszkai of Chester­ville; two chil­dren: Amy (Eric) Pierce of Hilliard, and Arron (Andy) Liszkai of Chester­ville; an adopted daugh­ter, Can­die (Kenny) Rogers of Fred­er­ick­town; five very spe­cial grand­chil­dren: Colten, Cami, Drew, Carter, and Addi; a sis­ter, Judi Burn­heimer of Colum­bus; and many nieces, nephews and life­long friends.

The Liszkai fam­ily will greet friends from 4 — 7 p.m. on Thurs­day, Octo­ber 25, 2012, at the Sny­der Funeral Home, Craven Chapel, 67 N. Main St., Mount Gilead. Ser­vices hon­or­ing his life will also be held there on Fri­day at 2:00 p.m., with Hos­pice Chap­lain Dave Matos offi­ci­at­ing. Bur­ial with mil­i­tary hon­ors pro­vided by the V.F.W. 8054 and AmVets Post 87 will fol­low in Maple Grove Ceme­tery in Chesterville.

His fam­ily would like to extend a heart­felt ‘thank you’ to Hos­pice of Mor­row County, most espe­cially to their nurse Saman­tha and aide Tammy for their very spe­cial care of Jim.

Memo­r­ial con­tri­bu­tions may be made to Hos­pice of Mor­row County, or to the ALS Asso­ci­a­tion, Cen­tral and So. Ohio Chap­ter, and they may be sent to the care of the funeral home.

Sny­der Funeral Homes of Mount Gilead is hon­ored to have been cho­sen to serve Jim’s fam­ily and your pri­vate con­do­lences may be expressed to them by vis­it­ing www.snyderfuneralhomes.com.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Oct 23 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.