Retired farmer enjoyed athletics

7/21/2003

GIBSONBURG, Ohio - Edward J. Zinser, an avid amateur athlete, died of kidney failure Thursday at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center in Toledo. He was 77.

Mr. Zinser was an active hunter and played several sports in municipal leagues, winning trophies for bowling, baseball, and football. He also played slow-pitch softball.

“He was quite an athlete,” said his sister, Anna Marie Benore, with bowling his favorite. “At one time, he was in five different leagues.”

Mr. Zinser liked to watch female fast-pitch softball teams, and he cheered on Notre Dame University and Ohio State University football teams; he didn't follow professional teams.

Mr. Zinser was born in McComb, Ohio, to a farming family. They moved to Gibsonburg in 1936, his sister said.

In 1944, Mr. Zinser graduated from Gibsonburg High School and enlisted in the Army. He served until the war's end in 1945.

He returned to Gibsonburg and farmed tomatoes, wheat, corn, and soybeans with his father and brother, Jerome.

The brothers farmed together until 1973, when Jerome Zinser turned 65, Mrs. Benore said.

While farming, Edward Zinser also worked at National Gypsum, quarrying lime. Later he worked for Frank Hovis and Son Construction.

He retired in 1986, after a fall from a scaffold fractured his skull in two places and permanently damaged his left ear.

“He had continuous head pain after that,” Mrs. Benore said.

Mr. Zinser was a member of St. Michael's Catholic Church, the Knights of Columbus, and the Sandusky County Sportsman's Club.

He was a life member of the Gibsonburg Post of the American Legion.

For years, he and a friend in the Legion raised the flag at Gibsonburg High School home football games.

Surviving are sisters, Lola Cleary; Sister Mary Zinser, a nun, and Anna Marie Benore.

The family suggests tributes to the church or to the Gibsonburg High School Athletic Boosters.