RICHARD WILLIAM "DICK" SEITZINGER

1933 - 2012

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – Dick Seitzinger was born Sunday, Feb. 19, 1933, on a farm in Maple Park (DeKalb County), Ill., in the middle of a major snowstorm. The youngest of the seven children of Vernon William Seitzinger and Ruth Myrtle Powell Seitzinger, Dick was delivered by Vernon himself, the doctor not being able to make the trek through the snow for several days. All of the children were born and raised in DeKalb County.
For the past nine months, Dick fought many illness battles, slowly weakening his body until he could no longer win the war against infections attributed to a compromised immune system from 15 years of taking immunosuppressive drugs he desperately needed to control rheumatoid arthritis. He passed away on Sunday, July 8, 2012, at UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center, with his loving wife, Jo-Ann, and his much-adored children, Mark Seitzinger and Julie Seitzinger Chesis, by his side holding his hands.
His wife and family say a prouder patriot would be hard to find; after graduating from DeKalb High School in 1951, Dick enlisted from Aurora and served in the U.S. Navy from 1952 to 1956 in Memphis, Tenn., and Miramar Naval Training Base in San Diego, Calif., as a link flight instructor during the Korean War, training World War II pilots to fly newer planes. His love of airplanes passed down to his son, Mark, who has been employed in management positions at UPS Aviation Headquarters in Louisville, Ky., for more than 20 years.
While serving in the Navy, Dick enrolled in the U.S. Navy College in Norman, Okla., and later attended Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, graduating with degrees in electrical engineering and marketing. Because he ran his charter bus company, hauling mail on a star route for the U.S. Postal Service between DeKalb and neighboring towns early in the morning, pumping gas at Gau's Gas Station on Sunday mornings and driving semi-trucks at night from DeKalb to Chicago for Corey & Evans Freight Company, it took him a long time to finally complete his education; he was still studying late at night after his children were born. That exceptional work ethic and those chosen fields led him through successful careers mainly in the charter coach industry for the next 50 years.
Charter coach buses were Dick's first passion. After owning and operating Dix Transfer Trucking and Charter Bus Services for several years in DeKalb, and later working as an electrical engineer for GE in DeKalb, he went on to manage and assist American Transit Corporation in establishing the NIU Huskie Line in DeKalb until 1974. Dick, Jo-Ann and their children then moved to Los Angeles, where Dick marketed the first battery-operated buses in the U.S. for Electrobus Corporation. In 1976, United Technologies purchased Electrobus and discontinued the electric vehicle division, and American Transit hired Dick to manage the West Coast Division of Hausman Bus Sales.
For the next 25 years, when he retired, Dick was the west coast regional vice president and general manager of Hausman Bus Sales in Los Angeles, a subsidiary of American Transit Corporation and Motor Coach Industries, the sole manufacturer and distributor of Greyhound Buses. He continued working as a consultant for MCI for another five years after retirement. He then spent the next several years supervising the conversion of his own MCI coach into a beautiful motor home, which he recently passed down to his son, Mark. This past May, Mark and his cousin, Ken Hovsepian, drove the bus from Los Angeles to Louisville, calling Dick each day so that he could vicariously share in their adventure. Oh, how much Dick wanted to be with them.
Dick and Jo-Ann met in 1960 at NIU when Jo-Ann's NIU concert choir chartered Dix Transfer to go on tour; Dick drove one of his buses, and Jo-Ann became ill on tour spending most of that week recuperating on Dick's bus. Fate gave them 51 blessed years of marriage filled with love and respect for which there is no comparison. Dick and Jo-Ann were married Feb. 11, 1961, at DeKalb Methodist Church in DeKalb, and were members of the Northridge United Methodist Church in Northridge, Calif. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on Feb. 11, 2011, with their children and dear friends in Los Angeles, and were fortunate also to celebrate their 51st anniversary this year, a week before Dick's 79th birthday. Their lives were filled with work, children, grandchildren, friends, travel, the care of Jo-Ann's elderly parents and undying love; they were inseparable.
On March 10, 1962, Mark Richard Seitzinger was born at the DeKalb Hospital, and on Oct. 17, 1963, Julie Ann Seitzinger also was born in DeKalb. The children attended the NIU laboratory school until the family moved to Los Angeles where they both graduated from Granada Hills High School in Granada Hills, Calif.
Mark served in the U.S. Army as a crew chief on Cobra helicopters for three years and later graduated from Embrey Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz., with a degree in aviation maintenance management. He joined Evergreen Air Center in Tucson, Ariz., after graduation, and several years later, moved to Louisville to work for UPS where he continues his career in aviation. Mark's four children were all born in Louisville.
Julie graduated from California State University in Northridge with a degree in human resource management and moved to St. Louis in 1986 after she married Paul Chesis who was completing medical school at Washington University. While Paul was working on his doctorate in St. Louis, Julie and Paul had two of their four children; they later completed their family in Los Angeles while Paul was working on his radiology residency at UCLA.
Dick and Jo-Ann were extremely proud of their children and blessed with many grandchildren – they were, and are, their pride and joy.
Jo-Ann and Dick enjoyed their retirement; they did their utmost to get as much fun out of life as was possible. Dick was an avid reader and remembered almost everything he read; it made him a super crossword puzzle partner when Jo-Ann was attempting to fill in the blanks – he absorbed trivia. Dick's collection of music albums, records, CDs and tapes was huge; he especially enjoyed classical music and those many years when Jo-Ann and Dick regularly attended the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Hollywood Bowl.
Genealogy was both Jo-Ann and Dick's hobby; they traveled all over the world via planes, ships and automobiles, often researching ancestors, but mainly wanting to see everything they could absorb while they were physically able. There were many magnificent trips, but the trip of their lifetime was when their children joined them on a lengthy river cruise in 2008 from Amsterdam to Budapest down the Rhine, the Main and the Danube rivers. There were few times in the past four years that Dick did not reminisce about how much pleasure that trip gave him, mainly because the children were with him.
Holidays were often spent in Kansas City or Louisville with the children and grandchildren, but the last trip that Dick and Jo-Ann were able to take before he became ill was in September, 2011, when they attended Dick's 60th high school reunion in DeKalb; they then drove up to Charlevoix, Mich., to revisit a favorite town where Jo-Ann's ancestors settled. The highlight of that trip for Dick was attending the DeKalb County fair in Sandwich and viewing the old steam engines and vintage tractors; the smile on his face in the photos from that trip are priceless. Dick was always a country boy; even living in Los Angeles, his heart was on the farm.
His wife and family say Dick's smile was contagious; his love of his country was enormous; his heart was full of pride for his children and grandchildren; his work ethic was remarkable in that he firmly believed that one should do his best at whatever the task, no matter whether it was ditch digging or heading a large corporation. "Be unique" was his motto. Dick's wisdom was unmatched; his devotion to his wife leaves a void that is bottomless; he loved his dogs, and Lilli and Skeeter are searching his home for him. His family says there are few men in this world who can hold a candle to Dick Seitzinger. He will be sorely missed by all who knew and loved him.
Survivors include Dick's wife, Jo-Ann Giacone Seitzinger of Porter Ranch, Calif.; children, Julie Ann Seitzinger Chesis (Paul) of Kansas City, Kan., and Mark Richard Seitzinger (Lisa) of Louisville.; Also surviving are the following grandchildren: Mark's children, Dustin Seitzinger, Kelsey Seitzinger and Morgan Seitzinger of Louisville, and Austin Seitzinger of Minneapolis; and Julie's children, Richard Chesis, Mollie Chesis and Max Chesis of Kansas City, and Lauren Chesis of Camden, Maine. Dick also is survived by his brother, Donald Seitzinger (Lois) of DeKalb; and many nieces, nephews, and dear friends.
Besides his parents, Dick was preceded in death by his brothers, Willis Powell (Patricia) of Grand Ridge and Elvern Seitzinger (Hazel) of DeKalb; and sisters, Mary Kathryn Seitzinger Hovsepian (Joe) of Gardena, Calif., and Shirley Seitzinger Bjelk (Bob) and Nancy Seitzinger, both of DeKalb.
Funeral services and burial were held Thursday, July 12, at Eternal Valley Memorial Park Mortuary in Newhall, Calif., with the Rev. Steve Petty of Northridge United Methodist Church officiating. Kenneth Hovsepian, Dick's nephew, and Mollie Chesis, Dick's granddaughter, offered heartrending eulogies. The U.S. Navy Honor Guard in summer "whites" with a bugler honored Dick with the U.S. Flag draped over his casket and presented to Jo-Ann; tears flowed out of pride and love.
If there is any doubt in anyone's mind that Dick's spirit is not always with his family, it would be difficult to explain how the day after the funeral, while cleaning out a curio cabinet next to Dick's bed, Dick's daughter, Julie, found a tiny yellowed piece of paper under a ginger jar with the poem by Edgar A. Guest, "Miss Me-But Let Me Go!" The words are both heart-breaking and comforting, but the two lines that will be etched into the family monument are "Remember the love we once shared; Miss Me-But Let Me Go!"
The family wants to thank Drs. Saleh, Mattimore, Levine, Fitzgerald and all of the specialists, nurses, physical therapists and care partners at UCLA, as well as those at Chatsworth Park Health Care Center, who cared for Dick these past months; the doctors did their best to fight the infections that continued to weaken his body and spirit, but in the end, God had a master plan that not even the finest physicians or medical facility could counter.
A memorial fund in Dick's honor is being established at UCLA to advance research in rheumatoid arthritis; checks should be made payable to "UC Regents" and mailed to UCLA Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, in care of Juan Vaquerano, 1000 Veteran Ave., 32-59 Rehab Building, Los Angeles, CA 90095.