Richard G Raschke

RASCHKE, Richard G. "Rich"
Kalamazoo

Passed away on Monday, January 15, 2018 at the age of 61. Rich was born on September 30, 1956 in St. Louis, MO. Rich grew up in Missouri, moved to California, and settled in Michigan. He graduated from Middleville High School in 1975 summa cum laude where he was a member of the National Honor Society and earned varsity letters in football, basketball and baseball. He furthered his education at Western Michigan University, graduating summa cum laude with a Bachelors in Business Administration. He was a member of the Phi Eta Sigma Honors Fraternity. Rich married the love of his life, Susan Karn on September 22, 1984. They were blessed with two daughters Erin and Elizabeth. Rich enjoyed spending vacations and holidays with family, professional baseball (Go Cardinals!), and teaching his daughters all of the random trivia facts a person would ever need to know. Rich was involved in a multitude of community activities including Portage Rotary, BNI in Battle Creek, and several recreational sports leagues including softball, golf, bowling, and volleyball. Professionally, Rich was the owner/operator of his own business, A-1 Signs. Rich will be remembered forever for his practical jokes, sense of humor, passion for his business, and especially the love of Family. He will be missed and remembered. Rich was preceded in death by a brother, Michael Perkins; his in-laws, Eugene and Florence Karn; and a brother-in-law, Richard Karn. Rich is survived by his loving wife Susan; two daughters, Erin (Derek) Geschwendt of Portage; Elizabeth Raschke and her fiancé, Michael Shea of New York, NY; two grandsons, Caleb and Finn Geschwendt; mother, Ellen Raschke; two sisters, Patricia (Fritz) Cherrington of Morrison, CO and Cathy (Mike) Popma of Middleville, MI; three sisters-in-law, Sharon (Dave) Namenye of Davison, MI, Barbara Karn of Portage, and Barbara Perkins of MO; and several nieces and nephews. Visitation will be held from 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. & 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. on Friday, January 19th at Langeland Family Funeral Homes, Westside Chapel, 3926 South 9th Street. The funeral service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, January 20th at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, 1747 W. Milham Avenue, with The Rev. Rachel Laughlin officiating. Memorials may be directed to Portage Rotary Charities, PO Box 55, Portage MI 49081.


Eulogy
Hello everyone, first I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for just being here. I know a lot of you have travelled from near & far today just to show your support. It is such a healing gift to be surrounded by your love & respect for my father. Thank you so much for coming and showing my family and myself that my Dad holds a special place in your heart. Your friendship allows us to know that my father will be nearby always, because of the memories stored within you. It was once written that the value of a person's life is directly related to the number of people they positively affect. I can't begin to tell you how many calls, texts and notes I've received in the last couple of days from people my father knew. Many are here today, and I'm sure he is very glad about that.

Also, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the amazing Doctors, Nurses & medical staff that gave all of themselves and more to care for and try to save the life of my father before his passing. We appreciate you more than you will ever truly know.

How does a person summarize the life of another; let alone a parent into simple speech? It is truly impossible to summarize the life of such an extraordinary person, such as my father in so short of a time; however, if you have a few years, we'll chat. What describes my dad, what about him made him the man he was. Should I talk about his sense of humor, his love for movies and the walking dead, his passion for his company? Or talk about his passion for his Portage Rotary group, his BNI group, or his art skills? Should I talk about his amazingly average golf game, bowling handicap, volleyball spike, or his earth-shattering homerun or 1st base skills? Or better yet, about sports? My dad was an Oakland Raiders fan, Detroit Red Wings fan, and U of M fan. Confused as he may seem, one could say he was just a huge sports fan. He knew all the stats, all the players, and all the best fantasy football advice. But most important, he was a St. Louis Cardinals fan. A quick side story about my dad, and this will come full circle I promise, at my wedding my dad made a bet with our neighbor that he couldn't bring up Hitler in his speech; and he won that bet, so I'll take my revenge: Hey dad, the Chicago Cubs won the world series more recently than the cardinals... GO CUBS!!!!!!! But despite my dad's poor choice in loving the St. Louis Cardinals and the multitude of activities and groups he participated in, none of these things are right to properly summarize my dad.

My father was and is Richard Raschke, known to many as Rich, Richard, or that A-1 signs guy, known to few as husband, dad, son, brother, uncle, or friend and known to fewer yet as Grandpa, papaw, or apparently on his last day crapaw. Of all of the titles my father held, the ones he cherished most were dad, husband, son, brother, and papaw. While my dad was a man of few words, his favorite had to be "family." To this conclusion, I feel the only way to summarize the most extraordinary man I have ever met in a time socially acceptable for a funeral, is to tell you why family meant so much to him.

My dad always saw the positive side of life through family; when he spoke about his childhood, he told the funny stories about his sister siphoning gas from the neighbor's car or his sister and the fake ID scandal. I've since found out both of those were the same sister, because the other one was always grounded. He told me how hard his mother worked to put food, specifically honeycomb on the table so he could collect all of those stupid license plates. My dad always made it clear that family is the backbone of any life worth living. My dad worked so hard to pay his way through college and become a top salesman with whatever company he worked for. He loved my mother, my sister, and me so much he sacrificed all of himself to provide for us. When the opportunity arose for him to create his own business, A-1 signs, he was so excited. He had custom "toilet swisher" and "janitor" coats made for my grandparents just to spread the "LOVE." He involved his family in every aspect of his new business that he was so proud of; including hiring my cousin, my sister, and myself when we needed summer work. My dad was the kind of family man who would drop anything to help family in need.

Even though I know how much he loved his wife, daughters, mom, sisters, nieces, and nephews; I know my dad's favorite title was grandpa. There is nothing in this world my father was more proud of than his grandsons. My dad loved spending time with them, playing with them, teaching them how to hit a ball, buying them nerf guns and taking them on tractor rides. The day my father passed, two amazing things happened; first, he started his day off babysitting his two favorite mini humans, and after he was gone, his mother told me that while I was pregnant with my second, he once asked her how he could love another baby as much as he loved my oldest son Caleb. After my second son was born, he found her answer to be right; his heart just got bigger to make room for the second grandson, Finn. Finn is my father's mini-me. I see so much of my father in him; and they were two peas in a pod, no one in this world could hold a candle to my dad when he was with Finn. Finn only ever wanted my dad to hold him and play with him. He threw "terrible two" temper tantrums if anyone else even tried to hold him. My dad was Finn's favorite person in the whole wide world and quite probably Finn was my dad's.

I know that through Finn's eyes my dad will always be watching over me, making sure I know family always comes first, guiding me towards success, and ensuring that I remember how much he loved his entire family; from his wife Sue, mother Ellen, sisters Cathy and Pat, daughters Erin and Liz, sons-in-law Derek and Mike, innumerable friends and customers, to the most special people in his life; his grandsons Caleb and Finn.

Thank you all again for coming here today to show your love and support. I know it is hard to see such a good man leave us so early, and it is hard to realize and accept that he will not be there for us on the most important days of our lives; our wedding day, our law school graduation day, our preschool graduation day, or retirement day, but I sincerely hope that we can find solace in knowing he is proud of us. He is proud of his family, and you are all family to my father and I know he's smiling down on all of us today happy that his sincere love for family has had an effect on us all.

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Funeral Service

JAN 20. 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Prince of Peace Lutheran Church
1747 W. Milham Rd.
Portage, MI, US, 49024