Bart Roger Chickering

Bart Roger Chickering, age 90 of Lancaster, California, passed away peacefully at his home Tuesday evening November 4, 2025. He was born on October 28, 1935 in Long Beach, California to Bart and Marie Chickering.

Growing up in a young neighborhood in Lakewood, California, he was always out of the house, playing street games with the neighbor kids, or riding bikes. Later, he developed a love for roller skating and would frequently take his sister to skate at the local tennis courts or around town. He would eventually go on to compete in American Artistic Roller Skate events and won medals in Figure Skating and Dance. He was a self-described wild kid that would frequently get into trouble and was even put into a military academy as a result. He found he enjoyed authority though, becoming a roaming Hall Monitor at school.

When he was fifteen, his family moved to Happy Valley, California to start a chicken ranch, where he was assigned to milk the cow every day before and after school. When they got their first shipment of baby chicks, they discovered they would group together to stay warm (despite the heat lamps) and would trample each other, killing off several of them, so the family had to take turns throughout the night to keep them separated. During one of Bart’s midnight shifts, he realized he could just put them back in the boxes they arrived in to keep them divided into smaller numbers, keeping them alive throughout the night and allowing him to finally sleep. This became the routine going forward and was what he fondly recalled as having saved the ranch.

Afterwards, he would volunteer with the Anderson Police Department as a Ride Along and loved it. He would go every weekend and stay for multiple shifts. He would eventually apply to be a policeman with the Redding Police Department and was hired on the spot, starting the next day. On his first day, he pulled someone over for speeding, having exceeded the speed limit by two miles per hour; but as time went on, he moved up the ranks to become a detective and a Sergeant. Having a family at the time, he eventually left the police force and would work different jobs, like head of Security at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Oahu, head of maintenance at the Bel Air Bay Club in California, and then eventually did home repair in a family business he started until he retired.

Bart was married twice. He met his first wife, Patricia Eggleston, in Redding and they had four children: Roger, Lea, Sandy, and Guy. After they divorced, he met his second wife, Lora McGehee, on a double date – although they were each there with someone else but instantly hit it off. Together, they had two sons: Tige and Barrett.

Family vacations involved Bart’s love for camping, boating, and fishing, especially at Lake Shasta in Redding.

Bart will truly be missed and was loved deeply by his family.

Bart is survived by his wife, Lora of 55 years, his four sons, two daughters, their spouses, numerous grandchildren, and their spouses, and even several great grandchildren.

A graveside service will be held at Joshua Memorial Park, located at 808 East Lancaster Blvd, Lancaster, CA 93535, on November 14, 2025, at 12:30 pm