Frederick Hung Fo Au

With love and fond aloha in our hearts, our family says farewell to our beloved husband, honorable father and benevolent brother, Dr. Frederick Hung Fo Au. He peacefully departed from this world at the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year - Wednesday, January, 29, 2025. He left behind a lifetime built on his love of adventure, cars, family, travel, humor and the Arts. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii on September 30, 1932, Fred was the son of Chuck Sai and Hung Chun Au.

During his boyhood, he was an adventurer and loved to roam around his island home of Oahu. One day, he told his mother that he was running away from home and had tied in a bandana sack to the end of a stick in search of that new horizon. When his brother and sisters saw him leaving, they started calling him, “Hobo”. His inspired nickname made it throughout his whole life and he considered himself a true vagabond through and through.

In his school years, Fred was a graduate of the prestigious St. Louis High School, a private men’s Catholic educational institution. After graduation, he traveled to the “mainland” to study agriculture at Michigan State University.

With the completion of his Bachelors of Science degree, he was called to active duty to serve in the Korean War. He was honorably discharged from the Army U.S. Signal Corps with the rank of a Captain.

To further his education and curiosity in the natural world, Fred returned to college and completed his Master’s in Soil Science. Armed with this degree, he went back home to the Islands to rest and begin his career after years of work and study.

It was on the very day of returning to Honolulu, where he would meet the love of his life, Bertha Chang. By sheer coincidence, they had met before when they were younger as next-door neighbors on Kuakini Street. They had originally shared a bomb shelter in Fred’s front yard when the Island of Oahu was under attack at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 – he was 9 years old and she was only 3. Who would have predicted that many years later, they were to marry on a misty but beautiful Hawaiian summer’s day in Kaneohe?

Together, Fred and Bertha traveled stateside to begin their new life and for Fred to complete his Doctorate in Microbiology at Oregon State University. His family grew with the arrival of a girl and boy in Corvallis, Oregon. A few years later, when they had moved to Las Vegas NV, Fred started his professional career as a Microbiologist for the Environmental Protection Agency at the Nevada Test Site. Once again, he and his wife welcomed additional family members when they were blessed with two more children, another girl and boy. To dad, we four children were his original “Fab Four”.

His work in soil science and pesticides earned him U.S. Government Patents and also offered him further career success in the Department of Energy, where he finally retired after 25+ years of Government Service.

Fred was a devotee of nature and the Opera. He loved to mimic the aria from Bizet’s Carmen, the Toreador Song. He was fond of the desert, cowboy movies, and wide open spaces. He was a car fanatic, and of all the cars he owned, Fred’s pride and joy was his finned dark green, Saab 95, station wagon. Sadly, he gave the Saab up, when he could no longer find the parts to fix it.

No matter how old he got, Fred never lost the love of learning something new and making new friends with his charming wit and life stories. In his seventies, Fred was an avid fitness advocate and enjoyed “beating up the body” at the gym, as he called it. In his later years, he would celebrate his life, claiming that you only had one life to live - “This is the only show in town!”, an apropos statement for the city he loved the most, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Fred is survived by his loving wife of 63 years, Bertha, and his children, Celia, Matt, Beth and Mitch, his 9 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren. His Celebration of Life service will be held on Friday, April 25, 2025 in Las Vegas at the Palm Eastern Mortuary. A private ceremony for family only at the Southern Nevada Veteran’s Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City will be held later that day.

Our family would like to extend our deepest gratitude to all who knew him and we wish you fond love and aloha until we meet again.