Charles "Charlie" McGoff

MCGOFF, Charles Emmett "Charlie"

Charles Emmett McGoff, 92, passed away peacefully at his home December 15, 2024, in Decatur, Georgia.

Born in St. Louis in December 1931, Charles (Charlie) attended St. Luke's Catholic Elementary School and McBride Catholic High School. He served in the Air Force from 1951 to 1955. In the summer of 1955, he met the love of his life, Dorothy, at a swimming pool in St. Louis. They married in January 1957 and raised eight children.

Charlie's 35-year career as a sales engineer and manager for the Barber Colman Company took his growing family from St. Louis to Memphis and then to Decatur in 1965. His work selling industrial instruments to manufacturers earned him the company's National Salesman of the Year award. He was branch manager of the most profitable branch and consistently a top salesman before starting his own successful sales distributorship known as McGoff Pyrotech and later as McGoff-Bethune.

Civic-minded, he co-founded the Medlock Floodplain Coalition and was a longtime supporter of efforts to help pregnant mothers, house homeless teens and feed the hungry. Charlie served as a local Cub Scout leader and an officer with the Medlock Little League in the early 1970s.

He was a lifelong woodworker and a tinkerer. As a child during the Depression and WWII, he gathered scrap wood from the neighborhood, saved his pennies for nails, and picked up his grandfather's tools, teaching himself as he went. For his family, he built lamps, tables, furniture, rocking horses, soapbox-derby cars and a patio.

He played piano, loved ragtime jazz, swimming, skipping, silly poems and spinning tall tales. But more than all these things, Charlie loved his family and sacrificed much to support them, working long hours and traveling often. With a wonderful sense of humor and a penchant for silliness, he taught his children about faith, hard work and not taking the world too seriously.

He was predeceased by his son, Matthew; his brother, Paul; his granddaughter, Colleen; and his great-grandson, Everett. Charlie leaves behind his wife of 67 years, Dorothy McGoff; his children, Mari Fahrner, Patrick McGoff, Michael McGoff, Terri Colcord, Kathy McGoff, Erin Forsyth and Peggy Pusateri; 19 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.

His surviving grandchildren are Brian Fahrner, Andrew Fahrner, Kevin McGoff, Amy Cheroff, Tyler McGoff, Kyle McGoff, Jacob McGoff, Mallory McGoff, Elise Colcord, Keith Colcord, Jamie McClaren, Grady McGoff, Rachel McGoff, Anna Cooper, Kerry Cooper, Eli Cooper, Megan Forsyth, Aidan Forsyth, and Anastasia Pusateri.

Visitation will be held Monday, December 23, 2024, at St. Thomas More Church in Decatur from 9:30 AM - 10:15 AM in the Narthex. A funeral Mass will follow at 10:30 AM, and burial services will be held at 1 PM, at Honey Creek Woodlands burial ground, 2625 GA-212, Conyers, GA 30094.

In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation in his honor to either Birthright (https://birthright.org/) or Covenant House (https://www.covenanthouse.org/).