Charles Cohoe Jr.

1938 - 2020

Charles R. Cohoe, 82, passed away Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020, at home surrounded by his family after a long battle with a rare blood cancer.
He was born June 10, 1938, to Charles and Anne Cohoe in Choteau, Montana. He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Mary Cohoe, of California; his sisters Beverly Ray, of Arizona, Helen Fuller, of Colorado, and Jacqueline (and David) Bloom of Fairbanks; and his children, Ronald (and Kathleen) Cohoe, of Arizona, Kimberly (and Anthony) Montoya, of California, and Jonathan (and Ana) Cohoe, of California. Charlie is also survived by his seven grandchildren: Jacob Cohoe, Brett (and Kaila) Cohoe, Joseph DelliBovi, Nicole DelliBovi, Paula Cohoe, Diego Cohoe and Leonardo Cohoe.
Charlie's family moved to Fairbanks when he was 18 months old. He went to Main Elementary School all the way through high school and graduated with a class of 94 students. He remained close to most of those students throughout his life and was able to revisit with them at their 60th year reunion in 2016. He attended Western Washington College in Bellingham, Washington. He then joined the U.S. Marines with his lifelong friend, Jerry Phillips, and was honorably discharged as private first class in 1965.
Charlie was a professional painter, paperhanger, and carpenter by trade, and his workmanship was second to none. His work has been appreciated everywhere he applied his craft, from Alaska, Washington, Northern and Southern California to Arizona and Hawaii. He especially enjoyed doing projects in his workshop with his kids, his grandkids and the neighborhood kids, teaching them all life skills and a great work ethic.
He was also the consummate outdoorsman, enjoying camping, hunting and fishing his entire life. In his early 20s he worked as an assistant guide in the Brooks Range and taught his sons, daughter and grandsons how to hunt and fish at early ages. He took pride in harvesting record trophies for mule deer and elk, and he bagged countless ducks, quail, pheasant, dove, geese and ptarmigan over his lifetime. He spent most of his summers up in Alaska and never passed up an opportunity to go fishing for trout, grayling, halibut and salmon.
In 1971, he built a family cabin up in Tahoe Donner (Truckee, California) with his friend, Tony Unciano. It always had a special place in his heart and reminded him of this roots in Alaska. Each year he always looked forward to spending the Fourth of July there with his entire family and many friends, playing games and watching fireworks at Lake Tahoe. He was always adding, changing and improving the cabin and property with the gang that showed up each year.
Pops will be greatly missed by everyone that knew him. He was generous of his time, always showed you how to do it "the right way" and loved his family very much. He was the best brother, husband, father, uncle, grandfather, neighbor land friend anyone could ask for.
Instead of a funeral at this time, a celebration of Charlie's life will be held in spring 2021. In lieu of flowers, Charlie would hope that you will do an unexpected and unsolicited act of kindness for someone down on their luck in his name.