Raymond McAvoy

A. Ray­mond McAvoy, age 65, of Mount Gilead, died Mon­day evening, Octo­ber 29, 2012, at home sur­rounded by his lov­ing fam­ily fol­low­ing a coura­geous bat­tle with cancer.

On August 23, 1947, Ray was born in Rich­wood, West Vir­ginia, one of five sons of the late Gor­rel and Hazel (Williamson) McAvoy. As a fam­ily, they moved to Mor­row County in the mid 1950‚s when he was a child, in search of work, which his father found at the Whirlpool Corp. in Mar­ion. He grad­u­ated from Card­ing­ton in the Class of 1965.

Shortly fol­low­ing grad­u­a­tion, Ray joined his father at the Whirlpool Cor­po­ra­tion, where he would work for the next 41 years of his life. After a few years there, he went back to school at the Mar­ion Tech­ni­cal Col­lege, where he earned a degree in Main­te­nance Tech­nol­ogy. He then used his degree to become a main­te­nance tech­ni­cian at Whirlpool, which was the posi­tion he would have until his retire­ment in August of 2007. Also, he was a mem­ber of their P.E.O. (Plan Emer­gency Organization).

When­ever Ray decided he wanted to do some­thing, he always went all out, just like he did when decided he wanted to get a horse for his step-daughter, Jenny, to show in the fair. Before you knew it, Ray had a breed­ing farm, 28 horses, and was a part of every horse club around. Some of the clubs he was most active in were the Mor­row County Horse and Pony Club, he was a life­time mem­ber of the Horse Coun­cil of Ohio, and was for­merly a mem­ber of the ‘Over the hill gang’. Before he fell in love with rid­ing horses, he had loved rid­ing motor­cy­cles and was a part of the Gold Wing Road Rid­ers Association.

An out­doors­man, you could never keep Ray inside the house. He loved pack­ing up the camper and horse trailer, to go to his favorite state parks, Mohi­can and Hock­ing Hills, with his wife and grand­chil­dren. On those trips, they would ride his trail horses all through­out the park trails, and they also rode his four wheel­ers there too. He also loved going to car shows with his grand­chil­dren, to show off his restored 66‚ Ford Mustang.

Get­ting a sec­ond chance at love, Ray fell for a lady in the horse barn, Dot­tie Cooper. They were mar­ried on Decem­ber 22, 2006, and have cher­ished their six years together.

With ‘his bark being worse than his bite’, Ray may have talked tough but every­one who knew him, knew him for his ten­der, soft and lov­ing side. Nev­er­the­less, you also knew where you stood with Ray, as he was a straight shooter who said what­ever was on his mind.

In his younger days, Ray vol­un­teered for the Edi­son Fire Department.

He will be dearly missed by his wife, Dot­tie Cooper McAvoy; two chil­dren: Deb­o­rah (Keith) Fis­sell, and James McAvoy, all three of Mount Gilead; a step daugh­ter, Jenny Bachelder of Johnsville; seven grand­chil­dren: Kelsi and Caleb Fis­sell, Sierra, Makayla, and Dustin McAvoy, and Cody and Lane Bachelder; four broth­ers: Jerry (Sue) McAvoy of Mount Gilead, Gary (Patty) McAvoy of Card­ing­ton, Roger McAvoy of Jack­son Cen­ter, and Dana (Cheryl) McAvoy of Rico, Ari­zona; and numer­ous nieces and nephews.

Ray’s fam­ily will greet friends from 4 — 7 p.m. on Thurs­day, Novem­ber 1st, at the Sny­der Funeral Home, 76 S. Main St., Mount Gilead. Ser­vices hon­or­ing his life will also be held there on Fri­day at 11:00 a.m., with Pas­tor Lawrence Combs offi­ci­at­ing. Bur­ial will fol­low in Glen­dale Ceme­tery in Card­ing­ton, with the final part of his jour­ney appro­pri­ately tak­ing place using a horse drawn hearse.

His fam­ily would like to extend a heart­felt ‘thank you’ to every­one at Hos­pice of Mor­row County for their ten­der and lov­ing care of Ray.

Memo­r­ial con­tri­bu­tions may be made to Hos­pice of Mor­row County, and may be sent to the care of the funeral home.

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

Posted by Randa Wagner on Oct 31 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.