William James "Bill" Carney

William "Bill" James Carney was a gentle and funny man who laughed and worked hard, told silly jokes and loved his family. His dry sense of humor set the tone for family dinners and gatherings for decades. The native of Wheeling, W. Va., died Sept 7 at the age of 87.

Bill embraced the present and the past, often recalling how in 1937 at the first Boy Scout Jamboree he took a double exposure picture of President Franklin Roosevelt in a motorcade.

In high school, he wrote a poem in anticipation of an Ohio River flood. Years later, he would recite it: ``The people are cleaning their cellars out, a flood is coming, there is no doubt.'

Even though he had no memory of his own father, who died when he was three, he was a father and grandfather for the ages.

He served stateside as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 1943 to 1946 during World War II.

Bill met Madge Slate, an Army nurse, while the two of them were serving their country. They were married in 1946 and had three children, Patsy, James and Ralph.

At family gatherings, he would turn to Madge and ask no one in particular, ``isn't she beautiful?'

Having received his bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees in chemical engineering from West Virginia University, he worked for the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., in Akron for 34 years, retiring in 1987 as manager of polyester research. He was proud to be among the first PhD chemical engineers hired by the company. He liked to explain thermodynamics and heat transfer to family members, and loved going to work at what he called ``my science place.'

He amused himself and others by coming up with hilarious inventions. He called one of them a mawn-lower a contraption for keeping grass short. Rather than cutting the lawn, this machine, which only existed in his mind, would lower the lawn so that no cutting was necessary.

He loved spending time with his children and grandchildren and hearing of their adventures.

He loved music, especially big band classics and Broadway show tunes, Cleveland sports, a good vodka on ice, a cold beer, the game of golf and the Mountaineers of WVU. He cried with happiness when he went to his only World Series game in 1995 and the Indians won the game.

Even while struggling with Parkinson's disease and dementia the last few years, Bill could still easily rattle off punch lines of his favorite jokes, including this: ``Do you have anything to stop this coffin?'

He lost two big loves of his life in the 1990s. His wife of 49 years, Madge, died in 1995, of lung cancer, and his daughter, Patsy Carney Hughes, died two years later of breast cancer.

Loved ones will forever be thankful for their ``Papaw.'

He is survived by sons and daughters-in-law, James and Katie Byard Carney of Akron, Ralph Carney and Deena Zacharin of San Francisco; grandchildren, Will Carney and Heather Blair of Peninsula, Ohio, Patrick Carney and Emily Ward, of New York City, N.Y., Michael Carney and Joanna Grant of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Hedda Carney of San Francisco; and daughter-in-law Mary Buckley Stormer of Akron, her husband Barry and their son Barry Jr.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Rockynol Retirement Community, 1150 West Market St., Akron, Ohio, 44313, where Bill lived for more than two years and where the entire staff treated him with love, respect and dignity. Please specify either the Employee Christmas Fund or the Life Care Program when making a donation.

In particular, Bill's family wishes to thank the staff in the West Tower and at the Ledges for their professionalism, tenderness and never-ending support, as well as the staff of Senior Independence Hospice.

Calling hours will be from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Billow FAIRLAWN Chapel, 85 North Miller Road, Fairlawn. Funeral service will be at 10 a.m. Friday at the funeral home. Entombment at Rose Hill Burial Park. (Billow FAIRLAWN Chapel)