Published by Legacy Remembers on Oct. 22, 2023.
Sharon Kreitzer, a resident of
West Carrollton, Ohio, was born January 17, 1947 in Dayton, Ohio, and passed away peacefully October 8, 2023 in Miamisburg, OH. She was preceded in death by her parents, father, Kenneth "Kenny" Kreitzer, mother, Erie Mildred "Millie" Richards; and by her siblings, sister, Erma Julia and brother, Jess Daniel Kreitzer. Sharon is survived by daughter, Amy Kreitzer, and son, Adam Kreitzer; grandchildren Zachary Adams, Jacob (spouse, Cecilia) Adams, and Seth Kreitzer; and great grandchildren, Maya, Sofia and Zoe Adams. She is also survived by siblings, Esther (David) Stafford; Alice (Dick) Freeman; Teresa Kreitzer; Kenneth Jr. (Annette) Kreitzer; Julie (Darrell) Johnson; Miranda (Rick) Frisa, and Blake (Brenda) Kreitzer.
Sharon's sister, Esther, organized a local Celebration of Life for her, which will be held Saturday, October 28, 2:00 p.m. at Way of the Cross Church, located at 612 Beatrice Dr, Dayton, OH, 45404.
Family and friends of Sharon are invited to attend, and please bring their stories to share. Sharon's sister, Teresa Kreitzer, will sing, accompanied by a guitarist. Flowers and plants for the celebration are appreciated, please bring them with you to the gathering, or have delivered to the Church to arrive at 1:00 p.m. Additionally, or in lieu of flowers, donations to the Way of the Cross Church are welcome. Please send to the church, at address above.
Sharon's children will later organize a later memorial reunion for Sharon, inviting her family and close friends, and held in Kentucky, summertime 2024, when school is out and the weather permits camping.
Sharon's Amazing Life!
Sharon's mother, Millie was born in Carter County, Kentucky, and moved to Dayton in the early 1940s with her large family, like many rural Kentuckians who moved to various cities during the wartime work boom. And it was there, in East Dayton, that the epic, fairy-tale love story began between Millie and Dayton native, Kenny, and to whom Sharon was blessed as being their first born, with nine adored siblings to follow.
This big, Catholic family was lovingly raised, and lived happily in East Dayton at their house on Garland Avenue, where there were always numerous family, friends, and neighbors alike visiting daily. Sharon recalled enjoying everyone gathering to listen to Kenny and his friends play guitars and sing. And as the first family on the block with a television, the living room was always full when there was a good show to watch. Washington Park, across the alley right behind their house, was like an extension of their own back yard, a huge area to play. With a couple of ballparks, a football field, tennis courts, playground, swimming pool, and the basketball court, which was practically right behind the house, and a huge hill for sledding, there was always something fun happening or to do. That multitude of good people, in that wholesome setting, is something Sharon recalled as just one of many reasons that she had a truly outstanding childhood experience.
Attending Holy Family School was a positive experience for Sharon as well, and helped establish a good foundation for the rest of her education, later attending Chaminade-Julienne and graduating from Patterson Co-op High School where she was able to attend school two weeks, then work two weeks which she felt was a very beneficial experience, learning important work skills in various kinds of work, while also earning an income at the same time.
As a teen, Sharon met her best friends, Liz Clayton (later, Rains) and Joyce Deck (later, Arden). With Joyce and Liz, Sharon thoroughly enjoyed her young adulthood, having many adventures in and out of the city and even State., and also worked together, and are among so many other wonderful people with whom she remained lifelong friends.
Sharon was so smart, sweet, fun, creative lively, interested in people, and very interesting herself. A beautiful woman who was asked many times to marry, she always refused, primarily because she did not want to lose her sense of independence. She raised two children alone, while working full time, a challenging scenario for anyone- yet somehow, Sharon made it look easy!
As a young mother in the late 1960s and through most of the 1970s, she worked as a data processor at GM subsidiary, Delco, in Kettering. She was someone who was always doing fun projects on her time off, and loved to decorate her various homes in and around Dayton, in Kettering and Centerville, and with quite an artistic flair. She often helped her friend, Liz, a professional commercial artist and designer, create handcrafted jewelry and decor that Liz then sold at numerous art shows in Dayton, the rest of Ohio and beyond. Many in Dayton will recall wearing the unique and beautifully crafted feather earrings, macrame, beaded and art deco ceramic jewelry they created. They also built hundreds of popular, miniature rustic outhouses that were hung on pieces of wood to hang on the wall, planted hundreds of terrariums, made thousands of beautiful sand cast candles, handsewn stuffed fabric animals, rustic country wood art items, and so much more! Liz also sold these items in the mid-1970s at her store on Wayne Avenue, called The Ugly Shoppe. Their children (Amy, Adam, and Jon Rains) spent many hours playing happily together, while their moms had a great time while they busily worked, both bringing up their children as free spirits, raised to think for, and be, themselves, 100%.
Sharon's mother, Millie, was a lifelong, organic gardener, and Sharon was also very good with plants. Her houseplants were legendary, as people would enter her homes and exclaim, "It is like a jungle in here!".
Sharon had some regrets leaving DELCO in 1979, but she was ready for a change, and decided to move with her children to
Safety Harbor, Florida, the town where her grandparents on her mother's side had retired from Dayton and where she spent many family vacations as a child. She sold her home in Dayton, and bought a bright orange, used Cadillac, with which she towed a U-Haul with the few things she did not sell before leaving. During the trip, at first she thought the people passing her on the highway were flipping her off because she was driving an orange Cadillac. Then, she cracked up laughing, (with her typically uninhibited, vibrant laugh), when she finally realized they were actually pointing their finger up, toward heaven- because they saw the "Clergy" bumper sticker, as a Dayton preacher had sold her the vehicle.
Though she found jobs, and loved being near her Florida kin, a few months later, missing her friends, she drove right back to Dayton, in that same orange Cadillac, and worked various office jobs before working as waitress at Neil's Heritage House restaurant, where her sister Esther worked as bookkeeper, and sister Alice was also worked. She created strong bonds with the other waitresses and valued her time working there.
Sharon was very energetic, and though she worked a lot, she always found time to tastefully and creatively decorate her homes, collecting many cute vintage and antique items over the years. She enjoyed going thrift stores and flea markets with her family and friends, especially in and around the Oregon District, where in the mid 1980s, she and her sister, Alice, also took and sold many framed photos of passerby sitting on the large wooden, painted crescent moon face with a seat, that they would set up on the sidewalk at night, when so many were out enjoying the nightlife there. In that same time-frame, Sharon quit waitress work and got back to work in an office, working for Joyce's brother, Billy Joe Deck, at his Oregon District nightclub at the time, Jonathan's. There, she did the bookkeeping, and her brother Jess was a popular bartender. Those were memorable years, and she and several siblings enjoyed regularly going out together evenings to dance at many different Dayton nightclubs, from Disco to Rock and Roll, and also to go see and dance to bands from Dayton's then-tiny New Wave and Punk music scene, often watching them perform at Walnut Hills Bar or Sam's Bar & Grill. Jess and his friends, and many musicians, both local and visiting, had Sharon cut their hair, layered and "spiked", on top.
Sharon's love of nature made her an adventurous mother, with many hikes and picnics, in and around the Dayton region, and beyond. She also made sure her children also took many trips to the Kentucky property Kenny and Millie chose for retirement and later built a house. This was a large, magical parcel of land, surrounded by Daniel Boone National Forest, land that Millie's grandparents farmed and raised her mother, aunts and uncles, and is still in their family after 125 years. That setting has provided so many amazing memories for Sharon, her family, and later her friends she had come for camping out parties. She loved taking long walks on the same road her ancestors once roamed, and where her grandmother went to school in the little one room schoolhouse still standing. She loved watching her siblings and children and later grandchildren while they were wading and swimming in the creek, catching tadpoles- and helping them through bad cases of poison ivy from playing so carefree in the woods.
Sharon loved being in Kentucky, and would once again leave Dayton to go there to finally live and have her little dream, retirement cottage in the woods built on the property. The work done by her father, Kenny, and his friend, master stone worker, Larry Caudill, while there she attended Morehead State University, as an Art major. She loved learning there, relished the creative atmosphere, further developing her artistic capabilities, while she also earned excellent grades in all subjects. She was just a year shy of graduating when she decided to leave her place until retirement, and move once again to sunny Florida. This time she moved to Venice, where she worked at her friend Joyce's "La Cheape Boutique", where she also loved to shop, and bring her friends and family to shop, and during that time she, and everyone she so typically, and generously, spoiled, had some of the very stylish clothes and accessories that Joyce always had stocked her store.
Sharon loved living in Venice, and bought a classic, Florida home, complete with a screened lanai and relaxing pool area out back. She decorated her home to reflect that special Florida vibe. She had a lot of visits from family and friends from all over, and she frequently brought them around to all her favorite natural places for adventures, like beach-combing, finding sharks' teeth galore, and going on scenic boat trips down alligator infested rivers, and taking drives to many parks around the region.
After many enjoyable years working with Joyce in that busy shop, Sharon once again craved a change, and began to work for Verizon Communication in Tampa as customer support. After finally tiring of the years of the long commute from Tampa to Venice, Sharon eventually sold her Venice home and moved to a condo in Clearwater. She retired early from her job and went back to her cottage in the Kentucky woods, in order to help Kenny and Millie as their health had declined. After her parents passed away, Sharon settled into her retirement life in Kentucky, where she had an art studio built. She enjoyed "doing her thing" at her place, and she also traveled to MX several times for extended stays with her family living there.
Sharon survived cancer treatment a few years later, then spent time regaining her health while staying once again in Valladolid with her grandson Zac, for part of winter, enjoying many adventures with her him and her grandson Jacob, his wife and daughters. This was to be her last very physically active year, but it was one to remember, as she loved sightseeing the many colonial towns and villages of all sizes, and where she bought the traditional Yucateca "huipil" dresses, and where she was the first woman to wear leggings with the dress, instead of the longer, traditional slip.
Sharon also adored the people and natural setting of the fishing village of Rio Lagartos, first home for all her granddaughters and where many friends cried when they learned she had passed, considering her a "very beautiful, elegant woman" who was very vibrant, and wore very cool outfits. She loved exploring all over the Maya Peninsula with her family, seeing the jungles, the monkeys, exotic birds, cenotes, and both the more famous and seldom explored Mayan ruins and haciendas, and of course, she loved walking along the secluded beaches with her family.
As Sharon's health declined in Kentucky, she was helped greatly by her youngest sister, Miranda, and her husband Rick, who had by then bought Kenny and Millie's property, adjacent to Sharon's, for their future retirement, now lovingly referred to as, "The Farm". Life in the woods, away from family, was eventually becoming a bit too strenuous and isolating, so Sharon once again gravitated back to the Dayton area, where she really liked living at her retirement age apartment complex, Canterbury Court, in West Carrollton. She had her things saved in storage in her old studio in Kentucky, but she brought along many of her zany, handmade, favorite things she loved, and was comfortably set up.
Sharon endured a lot of debilitating pain her last years from neuropathy, which limited her mobility. Even though she suffered very much, she did not want to dwell on that, and she was still, as always, so much fun to talk with, and always very interested in knowing what her friends and family were doing. Most recently, she was very excited when her grandson Zac told her about Jake and his band, Cultural Frequency recording an album last Fall in Seattle at Jack Endino's studio, and also playing an acoustic set at the legendary Central Saloon. And this past summer they and their band recorded again in Vancouver, BC, and performed at another legendary music venue, The Roxy, earning them new fans in both places. They know their combined musical foundation no doubt stems in part thanks to Sharon's love of music, which she shared and instilled in Amy, and Adam, who also plays a mean guitar. And she thought it was wonderful that her grandson, Seth was a drummer, and that all of her great granddaughters are also musical beings.
This past year, after two severe bouts of sepsis in rapid succession, Sharon's health debilitated to point of needing round-the-clock medical management at Legacy Miamisburg, where she received hospice care and died peacefully, finally released from her pain.
Sharon Kreitzer was very beloved, by so many, and her presence will be greatly missed. May the warm memories of her become a lasting comfort.