Barnard Strong Fero

1917 2014

A Life Well Lived

Born December 13. 1917. in Houghton. New York. The last of ten children born to the Reverend Albert David Fero and Pearl Winifred Strong. he was deprived of a first or middle name and lived a life with only three family surnames. His parents must have known he was destined to be as unique a person as was his name.

Some of the highlights of his life ...

• People always thought he was older than he was due to his height which he developed

young. He stood 6 feet 4 inches tall. weighed around 200 Ibs. and had brown hair and

twinkly brown eyes. He often added a moustache (and goatee) throughout his life.

• He broke his arm twice. Once, at age three, when he fell out of a rocker and off the back

porch, and again in his teens when he fell off his motorcycle and spent three days in

hospital.

• By age 12, he was driving his father to Sunday church meetings to allow him time to

prepare for the next service. His father often tended to two or three rural churches at one

time .

• When his sister Gracia was ordained and received her first church, he drove her from

western New York to her mountaintop church in Kentucky and back alone. He wasn't old

enough to legally get a driver's license at the time.

• During high school, he secretly worked at a local gas station after school in order to buy the

Indian motorcycle.

• At 14, his father drove him to southeast Montana to spend the summer with his eldest

sister's family near Willard. He worked the ranch, slept in the hay barn, and teased his

four nieces who were close to him in age.

• He lived in seven different cities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York while growing up as

his family moved from pastorage to pastorage.

• He earned a pilot's license while in high school. An uncle taught him to fly and he took his

mother up but never succeeded in convincing his father to do so.

• He skipped second grade and graduated from high school at age 16 in 1934.

• He was a three-sport athlete at Sandy Lake (PA) High School and held the western

Pennsylvania single-game scoring record in basketball (18). He went on to play minor

league baseball in the Pittsburgh Pirates' Butler PA farm club and basketball with the

Firestone Tire Company's semi-pro team in Dayton Ohio. He played softball into his 50s

and golf well into his 70s.

• He earned an athletic scholarship to Grove City (PA) College but had to wait until he turned

eighteen to enter; he was forced to Quit when the scholarship dried up two years later

during the Depression.

• He worked construction for the 1939 New York World's Fair and played baseball in the

Dodgers' farm system at Poughkeepsie, New York.

• In order to rescue his son from "bad influences", his father prevailed upon a friend in

In order to rescue his son from "bad influences". his father prevailed upon a friend in

Lansing. Michigan. to get him a job at Atlas Drop Forge where the company had a semi-pro

baseball team. Barney hitch-hiked to Lansing.

• He met Evelyn Harriet Newman there through friends and they were married in her parents'

living room in Owosso on Saturday. January 21.1939. They returned to Lansing that

evening to celebrate with friends and he got so tipsy he had to sleep in the bathtub his first

married night.

• He apprenticed at Atlas Drop Forge as a tool and die sinker (engineer) and worked in that

field for 41 years. It took him to places like Erie PA. Buffalo NY. Toledo OH. and four

cities in Michigan before going to Cordoba Argentina for six years and Querttaro Mexico for

twelve years.

• He was a long-time member of the UAW-CIO Die Sinkers Union even after he moved into

management positions.

• During World War II he worked in defense plants and held a deferment until April 1945 when

he was drafted. The war ended before he was required to report for induction at Ft. Wayne

in Detroit. Later. three of his sons were inducted there.

• He joined the International Order of Moose while living in Erie - so he could buy alcohol

under Erie blue laws.

• After his marriage in 1939. he lived in thirteen cities in four states and two foreign countries.

• He kept a meticulous notebook of his complete work life which details twenty-three jobs

from 1929 to his retirement in 1980. He once owned a small business (tool and die shop)

during the 1950s. His go-to iob was always with Atlas Drop Forge for which he worked

once each decade from the 1930s through the 1960s.

• During his work life he continued his formal education. taking classes at the University of

Toledo. Adrian (Mil College. and over 600 hours of extension work in math. chemistry.

trigonometry. and science at Michigan State University.

• He was a voracious reader all his life - sometimes reading as many as two or three books

at a time. worked table puzzles. played computer golf and Solitaire. and watched baseball

on television in his later years.

• In retirement. he volunteered his time and expertise with AARP. Lions Club. and the south

Austin citizens police advisory group S.A.L.T.

• He was married for 59 years and had four sons. six daughters-in-law. six grandchildren.

and nine great grandchildren.

He was admitted to hospital on October 16th and passed away peacefully just

before three o'clock in the afternoon on Thursday. October 23. 2014 with his son

Tim and daughter-in-law Mary by his side.

He was preceded in death by his entire birth family. his wife (1998). and his

youngest son Kelly (2010). Interment will be at the family cabin at Lake Van Etten

near Oscoda in northern lower Michigan - on the bluff overlooking the lake where

the morning sun shines and soft breezes blow.

Condolences can be left at the Weed-Corley-Fish website wcfish.com - or with his son Tim at 324 Tobin. Buda Texas 78610. ([email protected])

Donations is his memory can be made to the Sight Programs of the International

Lions Club. (www.lcif.org/EN/waystogive/indexphp)