Fred Heil

Fred Heil passed away unexpectedly on Tuesday, August 4, 2026. He is survived by his loving wife, Cindy, sons Scott and David, and his six grandchildren, Logan, Carter, Malea, Grace, Mason, and Avery.

Although our entire family is crushed by his loss, we arecomforted by the fact that he is in a much better place now, in heaven with God and his family. We are also grateful that in his final moments, he was having an amazing day with family on vacation in FL.

Frederick Michael Heil was born on April 16, 1944, in St. Louis, MO to his parents Fred “Bud” and Sally. He had an older brother, Clint and a younger brother, Bill.

Although he loved his hometown of St. Louis, God had other plans and used his job at TWA (where he worked for almost four decades) to take him to Kansas City, MO, where his life would change forever.

While grabbing lunch at the TWA cafeteria, he laid eyes on Cynthia Mary Mackin (eventually Heil), who was a checkout girl, and instantly fell in love. The only trick was getting her to notice him and feel the same, so one day he decided to “dance through her checkout line” (as we were told 1,000 times over the years) to impress her.

While it took some convincing and a lot of work on his part, he eventually won her over, they married, and not long after, Scott was born. A few years later, David followed and their immediate family was complete.

Eventually, TWA would go out of business and Fred’s division, which spun off into another company, was sold to Worldspan and the family, minus Scott who was in college, moved to the Atlanta suburbs, where they still reside today.

From there, life accelerated, as it does, and Scott and David graduated college, got married and started their own dreams with their amazing wives, Jill and Stephanie. Six grandchildrenfollowed in the years after.

One of the best things about our dad was how great he was with his daughters-in-law, Jill and Stephanie. He welcomed them into the family and treated them as the daughters he never had from day one. He often told us not only how fortunate we were to be married to such great women, but how fortunate he was to have them as daughters.

If you met our dad, you know he loved telling stories, jokes and just being himself. He was always unabashedly himself.

He was such a hard worker. I remember Mom taking us to the TWA offices when we were little to have dinner with him because he was working overtime again. He would do anything for us, and we are so thankful for him setting the example and instilling that relentless work ethic in us. While he and our mom often reinforced the importance of our education, they never had to preach to us about work ethic, because they showed us the importance of it through theirs.

He would always tell us how proud he was of what we accomplished in our careers, but we knew and would tell him that anything we had done was a direct result of the example that he and our mom set.

In addition to saying he was proud of what we did at work, he would tell us all the time how proud he was of what we did as coaches of our kids’ teams through the years. The only reason we both love coaching so much and pouring into those kiddos is because of the love that dad and mom showed us.

He loved so many things in life including his faith and our Heavenly Father, St. Louis Cardinals, with Bob Gibson, Stan “The Man Musial” and Ozzie Smith being his favorite players, sweets (especially Ghirardelli chocolate), ice cream, mini golf, building models, the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals and Notre Dame football (which he was smart to adopt after marrying Cindy and into her family who originated from South Bend).

He told David one day that the greatest moment in his life is when he had Ozzie Smith, who was a guest speaker at a conference he was at, FaceTime Fred from his phone (pic below). Mom and David were a little offended at this comment, as were his kids, thinking they might have been one of the top bright spots, but they knew what he meant.

While we mentioned Fred was a modeler, he was not just any modeler. He was an avid modeler, who won countless national awards and had his finished products featured in newspapers, a calendar and several museums across the country, including the Air Force Thunderbirds headquarters at Nellis AFB, the Saint Louis Science Center in St. Louis, MO and the Pensacola Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, FL, to name a few.

Being a modeler was not just a hobby for Fred, it was sometimes an escape, but more than anything, it was community. He made countless friends over the years at meetings and competitions, asking advice from others, but most often, being sought out for advice by other fellow modelers on how to improve their modeling skills, which he happily obliged. He loved his modeler friends and communities, as those were his happyplaces, filled with friendship, fellowship and one of his favorite things to do and partake in, storytelling.

Being a modeler also tied in well with one of his other big passions in life, history. Our dad was one of the biggest history buffs you would ever meet. It is a trait he passed down to not only his sons, but his grandsons.

While a lot of his historical knowledge revolved around wars and the military, it spanned far beyond that. He had a vast knowledge of science and how things worked in the world and loved sharing this with others, as well as either asking trivia questions or participating in trivia.

One of the things we will always love and be thankful for from our dad is our love of music. He loved music so much. When we were little, he would of course play his music on the radio in the car, and of course, we would complain about the oldies, because that is what you do as kids. But as we started getting older, we grew to really love most of his music, especially Fleetwood Mac and the Beatles. Music was always there for us whenever we were sad, down, depressed or going through a hard time. Music made us feel better, but it was also there for uswhen we were feeling great, excited and in love. We agree that music would never have had that impact on us without our dad.

Above everything, he loved his family. Our Mom meant the world to him. He loved her so much every single day and was always looking for something to surprise her with.

He loved his sons and told us every chance he had. We love the fact that he never held back his emotions as it taught us how to share ours, and the fact that it was okay to let yourself be vulnerable at times.

He loved his grandkids so deeply. All six of them were his everything. No matter how bad he felt, what pain he was in, whatever was going on, his face lit up and his spirit immediately rose the moment he saw them.

The story of our dad, and our mom’s husband, is quite obviously a story of love. Fred/dad was full of it. His love and passion for his family and friends, as well as everything else we mentioned,oozed from his pores.

Dad, thank you for loving all of us the way you did. Thank you for always being who you were at every moment. Thank you for your patience, your guidance and your love. May we all live with the love and passion you displayed. We all will miss you every day of our lives.

Until we see each other again…