Obituary examples for a father

Raymond “Ray” Duarte of Fall River, Massachusetts, a licensed electrician for 45 years, died August 18, 2026. He was 67. Ray wired his parish hall, his daughter’s first apartment and, by his own count, a third of the kitchens on Columbia Street. He leaves his wife, Fatima; his daughters, Ana and Christina; and his mother, Maria do Céu Duarte, 91. Funeral services are Tuesday, August 25, at 10 am at Silva Funeral Home.

Glenn Arthur Pratt, 71, came into our lives in 1993, when he married our mother, Diane, and we were 8 and 11. For the next 33 years he came to every game and graduation, and he came out for every flat tire we called him about. He worked on the county road crew in Spokane, Washington, retiring as foreman. Glenn died June 30, 2026. He leaves Diane; his sister, Marlene; and us, Tyler and Josh Avery, who were proud to call him Dad. A gathering will be held at Manito Park on Saturday, July 11, at 1 pm.

A memorial service for Hiroshi “Hiro” Tanaka, 79, of Gardena, California, will be held Sunday, October 25, 2026, at 1 pm at his family’s Buddhist temple. Hiro died October 6 at home. He spent 36 years as a quality inspector at an aerospace plant in El Segundo and 15 more coaching his grandchildren’s basketball league. He leaves his wife, Keiko; his son, Brian; his daughter, Amy Nakamura; and four grandchildren. The family asks that you kindly omit koden and flowers.

Harlan Dean Voth was born in 1940 in the farmhouse where he died on September 9, 2026, at the age of 86. He was the son of Jacob and Anna (Friesen) Voth of Hillsboro, Kansas.

Harlan farmed wheat and milo on the 640 acres his grandfather first broke in 1898, and he kept every rain gauge reading since 1961 in a stack of spiral notebooks in the kitchen drawer. He married Arlene Schmidt in 1962 at Hillsboro Mennonite Brethren Church, where he later served as a deacon and taught the junior high Sunday school class for 25 years. He sat on the county conservation board for 12 years, and no harvest was ever too busy for him to pull a neighbor’s truck out of a ditch.

Harlan is survived by Arlene, his wife of 64 years; his children, Kendall (Joy) Voth, Marcia (Dwight) Unruh and Philip Voth; 8 grandchildren; and 3 great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his brother, Wilbur.

Funeral services will be held at 10:30 am on Monday, September 14, at Hillsboro Mennonite Brethren Church, with burial in the church cemetery. Memorials may be given to Mennonite Central Committee.

Martin Ellis Greer of Raleigh, North Carolina, died on July 9, 2026, after a two-year illness. He was 64.

Martin grew up in Roanoke, Virginia, the son of Ellis and June Greer, and earned a history degree from Virginia Tech. He was teaching middle school in 1994 when his wife, Dr. Renata Greer, began her medical residency, and the two of them decided he would stay home with their newborn son. Two daughters followed, and Martin stayed home for 19 years.

He packed something like ten thousand school lunches and ran the elementary school science fair for a decade. For a long time he was the only father at the Tuesday morning playgroup, which he did not mind. Once the youngest started high school, he went back to substitute teaching and began restoring old furniture in the garage. Each of his children now owns a dresser he rebuilt.

He is survived by Renata, his wife of 34 years; his children, Owen, Clara and Maya Greer; his mother, June Greer; and his sister, Ann. A memorial service will be held at 3 pm on Saturday, July 18, at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh.

Clarence Odell “Buddy” Washington, U.S. Navy veteran and lifelong Norfolk man, died at home on May 30, 2026. He was 80.

Buddy enlisted in the Navy in 1964, at 18, and served four years as a machinist’s mate aboard a destroyer, including two deployments off the coast of Vietnam. He came home to Norfolk and spent 33 years at the naval shipyard in Portsmouth, retiring as a shop supervisor. He rarely talked about the war, but he went to every reunion of his ship’s crew until the last one was held, in 2019, and he was a lifetime member of his VFW post.

He married Loretta Simmons in 1970. He leaves Loretta, his wife of 56 years; his sons, Darius and Kenneth Washington; his daughter, Monique (Andre) Bell; and seven grandchildren.

The funeral will be held Saturday, June 6, at 11 am, with burial and full military honors to follow at the Albert G. Horton Jr. Memorial Veterans Cemetery in Suffolk.

Lt. Col. Rafael Antonio Quintero, USAF (Ret.), 66, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, died October 3, 2026.

Rafael grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico, the first in his family to go to college, and was commissioned through ROTC at New Mexico State University in 1982. Over 22 years he flew KC-135 tankers, including missions during Operation Desert Storm, and served at bases in Kansas, Japan and Alaska. After retiring in 2004, he taught Air Force JROTC at a Colorado Springs high school for 18 years. His cadets called him the Colonel, and he called every one of them by name.

He is survived by his wife, Denise; his daughters, Gabriela (Tom) Ricci and 1st Lt. Sofia Quintero, USAF; his mother, Esperanza Quintero; and his brothers, Ruben and Arturo.

Inurnment with military honors will take place at Pikes Peak National Cemetery on Friday, October 16, at 10 am.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un. Mohammed Iqbal Siddiqui, 84, of Sugar Land, Texas, returned to Allah on April 24, 2026.

Born in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1942, he came to Houston in 1969 as a young petroleum engineer and stayed for the rest of his life. He helped found one of the first mosques in Fort Bend County and led the dawn prayer there more mornings than not for 30 years.

To his eleven grandchildren he was Dada or Nana, depending on whose side they came from. He taught every one of them chess and let each of them win exactly once. He recited Urdu poetry at dinner whether anyone asked or not, and three of the grandchildren can now finish the verses for him.

He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Farzana; his sons, Imran (Nadia) and Kashif (Hina) Siddiqui; and his daughter, Sadia (Faisal) Rahman. Janazah prayer will be held after Zuhr prayer on Saturday, April 25, followed by burial.

Pap. That is what all 12 of his grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren called Orville Ray Sizemore, 91, of Hazard, Kentucky, who died August 27, 2026.

Pap went into the coal mines at 17 and came out at 45, then ran a small engine repair shop behind his house for another 30 years. He kept a jar of butterscotch on the shop counter, and any of us who could name the part in his hand got two. He took all of us fishing on the North Fork of the Kentucky River and taught us all to whittle, which is why each of our houses has a drawer with a lopsided wooden bird in it.

He leaves his children, Darlene Combs, Roger Sizemore and Faye (Dennis) Noble; his grandchildren and great-grandchildren; and one great-great-grandson, born in July, whom he got to hold. Funeral services will be held Sunday, August 30, at 1 pm at the funeral home chapel, with burial in the family cemetery on Lotts Creek.

Walter “Walt” Ziegler, 78, of Tucson, Arizona, made his final exit on April 6, 2026, stage left, as he always insisted.

A dentist for 41 years, Walt spent his evenings in community theater, where he played eleven kings, two Scrooges and one very convincing tree. He also won six blue ribbons for his pies at the Pima County Fair, a fact he worked into nearly every conversation and would want worked into this one.

Walt and Gene Alvarez were together for 33 years and married in 2014, as soon as the law allowed. He is survived by Gene; their daughter, Leah (Sam) Ziegler-Cho, whom they adopted in 1999; and two grandsons who have been promised his pie recipe as soon as they learn to crimp a crust properly. A celebration of his life will be held at the community theater where he spent forty seasons. There will be pie, and applause is encouraged.

Frank Joseph Dombrowski, 82, of Hamtramck, Michigan, died February 20, 2026. He would have thought this obituary was too long.

Frank drove a city bus in Detroit for 33 years, mostly on Woodward, and said about four words to each passenger: “Morning” and “Watch your step.” At home he was not much chattier. He showed his love by warming up the car, sharpening the knives and calling each of us on our birthdays to say, “Happy birthday. Here’s your mother.”

He leaves Dorothy, who did the talking for both of them for 59 years; his children, Karen, Steve and Michelle; and seven grandchildren. He died three days after Paczki Day, his favorite holiday of the year, and we like to think he went full. His funeral Mass is Thursday, February 26, at 10 am.