Lon R. Washtak

1950 - 2023

News story
By Mark Zaborney
Blade Staff Writer

Lon R. Washtak, who brought an engineer's precision and mindset to his job at Schindler Elevator and to duties of house, garden, and pastime, died Tuesday at home in Maumee. He was 73.

He'd been released from the hospital several days earlier after a heart attack, his wife, Gail Washtak, said.

He retired in 2012 as a superintendent with what had become Schindler Elevator. He began 40 years earlier as a mechanical engineer with what was Haughton Elevator, a legacy Toledo firm founded in the late 1860s by Col. Nathaniel Haughton, a Civil War veteran of the Ohio Infantry.

After Schindler bought the firm, it was known for a time as Schindler-Haughton and then as Millar Elevator.

"He was a stable guy," Mrs. Washtak said. "In the 45 years we were married, we only lived in two houses. He didn't like changing scenery that much. He liked to be established somewhere, and that's what he felt with Schindler."

Mr. Washtak traveled northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan, making sure the firm's elevators were in working order and diagnosing any problems.

He'd left engineering studies at the University of Toledo to work for Haughton. He resumed his education decades later at Heidelberg University in Tiffin and in 2002 received a bachelor's degree in an engineering-related field.

"He just wanted to go one better. He wanted to do the best he could," Mrs. Washtak said. "He got very good grades."

At home, he handled the design phase of a project that involved turning the garage into a family room and then adding a garage.

He planned and planted a large vegetable garden annually.

"It was self-satisfaction that he was able to grow these things on his own," Mrs. Washtak said. "He was real proud of it."

He also stayed busy scaring squirrels away from his English walnut trees.

In retirement, he became a collector and reseller of antique toys, particularly the metal cars, trucks, and other diecast playthings made by Tootsietoy, and he hunted for classic Lego items.

In search of finds, he scoured estate and garage sales and flea markets, even keeping track of future shows and sales in a notebook he carried.

"He was real organized. He did it in an engineer's fashion," Mrs. Washtak said. "He liked the idea of discovering new things and finding a deal, something he could resell."

He took his cleaned-up discoveries and sold them at toy shows across the area. His grandchildren also got a chance to play with the toys.

"If they liked to play with it, it must be a good thing," Mrs. Washtak said. "He was always getting something for the grandkids."

He bought, rehabilitated, and sold bicycles he found, and he kept a store of sports equipment he acquired, from golf clubs for left-handers and right-handers and ball gloves.

"If you needed something, he'd be able to go back and find it," Mrs. Washtak said.

Family and friends prized his woodworking skill.

"He started out with very simple figures and moved up to cigar store Indians – large figures – and was accomplished," his sister-in-law, Karen Kelley. His early work included scroll saw figures, and he progressed to more detailed pieces "with elements of carving," she said.

He was born Feb. 23, 1950, in Vermilion, Ohio, to Helen and Raymond Washtak. He was a 1968 graduate of Vermilion High School.

He played in a softball league in the 1980s and, more recently, he and a group of friends liked to golf at courses across the area.

"He could talk about many subjects. He could talk with anybody about anything," Mrs. Kelley said. "He could tell a story, and he was always kind to us as in-laws."

Surviving are his wife, the former Gail Witt, whom he married March 11, 1978; daughters Heather Elbriki, Elizabeth "Liz" Hayes, and Sarah Washtak; sister, Dayle Noll, and three grandchildren.

Funeral services will begin at 1 p.m. Tuesday at Newcomer Funeral Home on Heatherdowns Boulevard, with visitation after 10 a.m.