Love of boating led to career at marina

8/28/2003

PORT CLINTON - Richard J. Obergefell, a former marina owner who was active for many years at the Maumee River Yacht Club in Toledo, died of cancer Tuesday in his home here. He was 74.

Mr. Obergefell was a salesman for the former Addressograph Multigraph Co. in Toledo, a firm that made the first copy machines.

“He liked his work, but he was more of a boater and wanted to get out of it,” Theresa Obergefell, his wife, said. “So we bought a marina and made a great success of it.”

They acquired a marina in Marblehead, Ohio, in 1969 and renamed it O's Anchorage. Within a few years, Mr. Obergefell retired from Addressograph to devote his full attention to the marina.

The marina had dock space for 78 boats and maintained storage for about 60 boats.

“He hauled the boats out and put them to bed and did the dockage and motor maintenance, and our son worked right alongside him,” his wife said.

After selling the marina and retiring in 1981, Mr. Obergefell and his wife spent many hours boating. Over the years, they sailed through the Welland Canal that connects Lake Erie and Lake Ontario and traveled the coastal waterways of Florida where they spent winters.

Mr. Obergefell was a member of the Maumee River Yacht Club, serving as commodore in 1967.

Surviving are his wife, Theresa; son, David; daughters, Peggy Moore and Sandra Obergefell-Smiley; brother, Ronald; six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Services will be 10:30 a.m. Saturday in Immaculate Conception Church, Port Clinton. The body will be in the Neidecker-LeVeck & Crosser Funeral Home after 2 p.m. tomorrow.

The family suggests tributes to Stein Hospice, Sandusky, or the Immaculate Conception School Endowment Fund.