Morenci funeral home owner served as mayor, councilman

1/22/2005

MORENCI, Mich.- Charles Fink, a former mayor and councilman here for 26 years who also was the owner and operator of the Eagle Funeral Home-Charles Fink Chapel, died Thursday in his home. He was 90.

He died of complications from prostate cancer, family members said.

Born in Pittsburgh, Mr. Fink attended Pennsylvania public schools before graduating from Adrian College with a bachelor of science degree in 1938. He then went on to receive an embalming license from Worsham College in Chicago in 1939.

"He always wanted to be involved in service organizations and politics," Michael Fink, his son, said. "He felt that that was a person's civic responsibility."

Mr. Fink, who was the class president for all of his four years in college, was very proud of the work he did as mayor to end the dumping of raw sewage into Bean Creek, his son said.

"He was proud that he had helped in the building of the 11-acre lagoons, which were completed in 1956," his son said.

Mr. Fink met his wife, Wilma Hochrader, at Adrian College and they were married on March 17, 1939. When World War II broke out, he worked as a supervisor at a bomber-making plant at Willow Run near Detroit. He worked there for the duration of the war and then moved to Morenci in 1946, where he later opened his funeral home.

A member of the First Congregational Church in Morenci, he also was a member of the Free and Accepted Masons and the National Rifle Association. He was a Lenawee County supervisor for many years.

"He was a hunter, a gun collector, and he loved sailing," his son said.

Surviving are his wife, Wilma; daughter, Janice Wickstrom; sons, Chris and Michael; nine grandchildren, and 16 great-grandchildren.

Services will be at 3 p.m. tomorrow in the Eagle Funeral Home-Charles Fink Chapel, where visitation begins at 2 p.m. today.

The family suggests tributes to the Hospice of Lenawee or the Lenawee Humane Society.