Man worked with wood, sold it

1/9/2013

STRYKER - Raymond Roger Anderson of Stryker, a former village councilman and firefighter who was a retired manager of the former Stryker Lumber Co. and a past co-owner of the Bryan Building Center, died of cancer yesterday in his home. He was 76.

“He was interested in building a better community for his children and the citizens of Stryker,” his wife of 49 years, Jane, said. “That was extremely important to him.”

His son, Jack, described Mr. Anderson as a friendly man who was liked in the community and spent a lot of time with his family. He said he remembers his father working long hours on toys and furniture for his grandchildren in his woodwork shop.

Mr. Anderson, a native of Mark Center, Ohio, near Defiance, served on the Stryker village council for several years in the 1960s, particularly working to attract new business to the Stryker area.

Mr. Anderson graduated from Sherwood High School in Sherwood, Ohio, in 1942. He worked briefly in the Ford River Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Mich., before volunteeringfor the U.S. Navy.

World War II took him to the South Pacific, where he served from December, 1942, to March, 1946, as a U.S. Navy flight engineer on an amphibious plane used to hunt enemy submarines. He flew 107 missions, his son, Jack, said.

After an honorable discharge, he returned to northwest Ohio and enrolled in Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, where he met Jane Fetters, who would become his wife.

Mr. Anderson graduated in 1950 with a bachelor's degree in business and became a manager at Stryker Lumber later that year.

He worked there until 1971, when stockholders sold the business..

Later in 1971 he went to work as a retail sales manager for the former Stein Lumberyard in Bryan. Soon thereafter, he took part in the buy-out of the business and became a co-owner of what became the Bryan Building Center.

He remained one of the three co-owners until 1989, when he retired.

In his retirement, Mr. Anderson liked to garden and enjoyed golfing, woodworking, traveling, and volunteering for the community as a carpenter. The highlight of his volunteer duties was at the construction of the Stryker Public Library in the summer of 1996.

He was a member of the Yackee-Strong American Legion post in Stryker and the Free and Accepted Masons' Sherwood Lodge 620 and a former 25-year member of the Stryker fire department and the Stryker Rotary Club.

Surviving are his wife, Jane; sons, Rex and Jack; daughters, Susan Wlasiuk and Karen Wlasiuk; seven grandchildren; a step-granddaughter and a step-great-granddaughter.

Services will be at 10 a.m. Thursday in the Grisier Funeral Home, Stryker, where the body will be after 2 p.m. tomorrow.

The family requests tributes to the Hospice of Williams and Fulton Counties.