Contractor put others in need at top of his list

NEW BAVARIA, Ohio - Donald Joseph Like, Sr., who served on several local government boards and veterans' organizations, died of heart failure Tuesday at his home in Mulberry, Fla., where he had lived for three years. He was 72.

"It was his goal in life to help the community and the other veterans," his daughter, Kats Craley said.

Mr. Like served on the Pleasant Township Zoning Board, the Henry County Fair Board, the county board of elections, and the Holgate school board. His wife, Ruth, said he sometimes had five meetings a week.

As a member of the school board in the 1970s, he helped keep the district from being consolidated into a larger district. In the 1960s, he served as the first secretary of the township's fire dependency board, which helped families of injured firefighters.

As a member of the Holgate music boosters in the 1970s, he helped raise money for new uniforms, his wife said.

Mr. Like joined his father's plumbing and heating business in the mid-1950s and took it over when his father died in 1965. He also grew corn, beans, and wheat.

His daughter said he sometimes spent all day at the plumbing business, farmed until sundown, and got up in the middle of the night to fix someone's furnace.

"He would drop whatever he was doing to help other people," she said.

Mr. Like, a life member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars here, was worried about the future of the post because so many veterans were dying. He delayed his retirement to Florida for a year to organize an AMVETS post and serve as its first commander.

"He taught the boys in New Bavaria how to run it," his wife said.

Even after he retired and moved to Florida in 2002, he and his wife started volunteering to file paperwork for the local sheriff's department. Mr. Like served as disaster chairman for his retirement community, played saxophone, and sang in a choir and a barbershop quartet.

Mr. Like was born here July 17, 1932, and graduated from Holgate High School in 1950.

After high school, he joined the Air Force, serving as a radio technician in Korea.

Mr. Like became a fan of the Detroit Tigers at age 6, when he got the measles and listened to the games on the radio. He got players to speak to the VFW, and stood on the field with the players for this spring's first game in Florida.

He was a member of the Rotary Club, the Knights of Columbus, the American Legion, the Elks, and the Eagles.

Surviving are his wife of 49 years, Ruth; sons, Gerald, Donald, and Bartholomew; daughters, Christine Pfau, Doreen Strong, and Kathleen "Kats" Craley; brother, Leopold Like; 10 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

Services will be at 10 a.m. Thursday at Sacred Heart Catholic Church here. The family suggests tributes to the church or a charity of the donor's choice.