Salesman owned industrial tool distribution firm

10/25/2005

LAMBERTVILLE - Julius W. Juhasz, 77, a longtime owner and president of the Art Khun Co., a Toledo-based industrial tools distributor, died Sunday in his home here from complications of heart failure.

Mr. Juhasz started his career as a tool-and-die maker in Toledo machine shops in the 1940s. After a few years, he moved to Detroit and was hired as a plant manager for Detroit Broach Co., one of the biggest industrial tool distributing companies in the country at the time.

He returned to Toledo in the 1950s to work as a salesman for Art Khun, a Toledo entrepreneur who owned an industrial machine distributing company, said Jim Juhasz, his son.

"He met this fellow Art Khun in Detroit, and he admired him so much that he wanted to work for him," said his son. Mr. Juhasz, who bought the Art Khun Co. in the 1970s, retired from the company in 1994.

Born in Toledo, he graduated from Macomber High School and was an accomplished bowler who traveled across the United States to attend American Bowling Congress events.

"He was an incredibly engaging individual who was friendly to a fault," his son said. "When he was a salesman, many of his customers often attended his family parties because they had become his friends."

Mr. Juhasz married Dolores Kowalski in 1948. She died in 1999.

A longtime member of St. Hedwig's Catholic Church, Mr. Juhasz was very involved in the Toledo Hungarian community, his son said. "He always had his family around him and, when my mother was still alive, they never missed a chance to dance."

He also enjoyed golf and taking walks along the riverfront in Toledo and in parks.

Surviving are his daughters, Pam Thomas and Donna Kay Hall; sons, Bob, Jim, and Paul; 12 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

Visitation will begin at 2 p.m. tomorrow in the Thomas L. Wisniewski Funeral Home, 2426 North Reynolds Rd., where an Elks service will be held at 7 p.m. tomorrow and a Scripture service at 4:30 p.m. Thursday. Funeral services will be at 10 a.m. Friday in St. Hedwig Catholic Church.

The family suggests tributes to St. Hedwig Catholic Church.