Hans Holztrager

1924 - 2021

HOLZTRAGER, Hans D.

Age 97, went home to be with the Lord on Sunday, May 9, 2021, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He was born March 25, 1924, in Youngstown, Ohio, and lived most of his adult life in the Dayton, Ohio, metropolitan area.

After graduating from Scienceville High School in Youngstown, he volunteered for the U.S. Navy and served 3 years during World War 2 aboard the heavy cruiser U.S.S.

Augusta and the battle cruiser U.S.S. Alaska. He and his ship mates saw much of the world from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific, including assignments providing protection of Naval Task Force 58 as they launched air assaults on bases around Tokyo and also in the battles of Iwo Jima and

Okinawa. After an honorable discharge, he attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and earned a Bachelors and

Masters of Education. He met June Liston while at Miami and they were later married on August 6, 1950. He was preceded in death by June in 2012. Both Hans and June were life-long members of Salem Lutheran Church in Ellerton, Ohio. In their later years, they lived at Bethany Lutheran Village in Centerville, Ohio.

Hans taught industrial arts for many years at Miamisburg High School and later at Fairmont West High School in Kettering Ohio. He led many teams of his high school students in the 1960s to the Plymouth Trouble Shooting contest - a timed event with high schools competing from across America. He was a gifted craftsman, building his own home in Miamisburg and later crafting many pieces of fine furniture and cabinets. There was nothing he could not fix and his family lovingly calls him the Hansinator. He was always working on, repairing, or improving something in the garage or around the house. He loved wine-making, hiking, camping, target shooting, ice-skating, and traveling to see his children and grandchildren in many U.S. locations.

He volunteered his time with the Boy Scouts in the 1970s and was part of the restoration team at Caesar Creek Pioneer

Village in the 1980s. He was fascinated with aviation and was part of the design and construction team for the Wright Flyer replica that now hangs in the library at Wright State University. The work of the Wright Flyer team is chronicled in the

publication: A Dream Fulfilled: The Replica of the 1903 Wright

Flyer at Wright State University https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/special_books/9/

He is survived by his sister Johanna McMichael of Naples, Florida; brother-in-law Eugene Weaver of Centerville, Ohio; daughter Lee Ann Conlon, and son-in-law Greg Conlon of Clemmons, North Carolina, and by his son Jon Holztrager and daughter-in-law Michelle Holztrager of Farragut, TN. He also has 5 grandchildren: Suzanne, Allison, and Jonathan Conlon and Andrew and Matthew Holztrager and a host of nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews and great-grandchildren in Ohio and the Southeastern U.S. that brought joy and blessing to his life.

A memorial service will be announced at a later date. Arrangements are entrusted to GEBHART-SCHMIDT-PARRAMORE Funeral Home, Miamisburg. Personal condolences may be left for his family by visiting his memorial page at www.gebhartschmidtparramore.com.