Charles Vincent VOELKER

1936 - 2022

Charles Vincent Voelker of Spokane passed away on June 12, 2022, at the age of 86 from complications of Pulmonary Fibrosis. He was born to Raymond A Voelker and Rosetta A Voelker on April 13, 1936. He was the youngest of six children and 17 years younger than his oldest brother. He graduated from G-Prep Highschool. He worked at the Davenport Hotel for two years and was then hired out on the Great Northern Railroad in 1956. He worked as a locomotive engineer for 42 years. He met Jacqueline Kay Wiedeman, a nursing student from Bellingham, in 1956 and married in 1957. They had six children in nine years and the three-bedroom house in Spokane was soon too small for a family of eight. In 1968, he built a house in Greenacres where he started a small farm both raising animals and growing vegetables. Annual summer trips to the Puget sound were enjoyed by all except the fish, crabs, and clams. After retirement, they spent 14 years snowbirding in Arizona to get away from the gray skies of Spokane. In 2012, they moved back to Spokane permanently to be closer to their family and friends.

Nothing was more important to him than his Catholic faith, family, and friends.

He was preceded in death by his parents, five siblings, and one grandson.

Charles is survived by his wife Jackie, his six children Mary (Mark), David (Dawn), Charles (Joan), John (Donna), Jim (Carie), and Tom (Jenni), his sixteen grandchildren, and fifteen great-grandchildren.

A funeral Mass will take place on June 20, 2022, at 10:00 with the rosary preceding at 9:45 at Mary Queen Parish at 3423 E. Carlisle. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Poor-Clare Nuns or House of Charity.