Charles "Chuck", "Junior" Leon Reffner, 84, died peacefully at his home attended by his son, Vince on Sunday morning, January 8, 2023. He was born on January 11, 1938 and grew up in McPherson, KS, the fifth of six children of Cecil L. and Margaret (Zarnowsky) Reffner, who both came from farm families near Newton, KS. Margaret Zarnowsky was born in the U.S., eleventh of twelve children. Her parents immigrated from Prussia in 1885 with two sons. The remaining Zarnowsky children were all born in the Newton area. Cecil always told family members that the Reffners were Pennsylvania Dutch with origins in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Charles was preceded in death by his wife, Jacquelyn, two sons, Michael and Gregory, four grandchildren, Jacob who was laid to rest in Michigan, and Jason, Emily, and Ashley who are all buried side-by-side at Rose Hill Cemetery in Oklahoma City, plus four siblings, brother Merle who was shot down in a B-24 bombing raid over Hanover, Germany in WWII, brother Maurice, and sisters Martha Ellen Strouse and Rita Emery.
Charles is survived by his younger sister, Judy Rump, plus one son, Vince and Brenda Reffner of Yukon, OK, and five daughters, Patricia and Richard Schmidt of Clarksville, TN, Nikita Reffner of Peoria, AZ, Denise and Doug Jensen of Palm Coast, FL, Ann and Steve Adkins of Oklahoma City, and Teressa and Ted Sineway of Petosky, MI, with 18 grandchildren, 28 great grandchildren, and four great-great grandchildren, hundreds of nieces and nephews, and many cherished and loved friends.
Charles was a mentor and a teacher to many others all during his life, professionally with his own innovations and expertise, personally in his everyday life, and spiritually with his Catholic faith. Charles even taught literacy for adults while he and Jacquelyn lived in Michigan, then instructing a driving safety class for AARP, and training field workers to use satellite laptop computers for AT&T.
The early years of Charles' life was centered around his family. He especially delighted in his time with his dad, Cecil who worked as a parts man and machinist for Lane Supply Company in McPherson, where he worked behind the same counter for over 53 years. Charles would go to work with his dad and began to help him with everything from grinding crankshafts to realigning brakes and working with engines. As a young boy, Charles learned how to read a precision micrometer and use many other tools from his dad. Charles once pointed out how vital these early experiences had been to his career as a field and rig mechanic at several big companies in the oil industry, even though he just thought he was "having fun with dad".
Between working with his dad in McPherson and his world-wide respected career, Charles worked hard in many positions that included Dillon's Grocery store in McPherson, earning $0.45 an hour, plus full-service gas stations, Oklahoma Geophysical Seismograph Company, and a welder on the OG&E construction of the Horseshoe Lake Power Plant in Harrah, OK, among others. His life as a mechanic really started to develop when he and his older brother, Maurice, opened Reff's Rig and Engine repair business in Great Bend, KS, though they had to close the shop because they did not make enough money to sustain two families. By that time, with his dad's help, he had acquired a good set of tools.
Charles claimed that his career as an industrial engine mechanic began with Waukesha Engine & Equipment in 1961. During his fifty-two-year career, starting as a mechanic apprentice and ending as a respected master mechanic in upper management positions, Charles assembled an illustrious career including positions at companies such as Werme Engine and Supply, Big Chief Drilling Company, Drillers Engine & Supply, Waukesha-Pearce Industries, Trigg Drilling Company, Loffland Brothers Company, Nabors International Drilling, and Helmerich & Payne Petroleum Drilling, which encompassed much of North America with rig setups in Romney, West Virginia in the east to another on Pier J in Long Beach Harbor, California plus another rig located twenty miles south of Mexicali, Mexico. His career as an expert mechanic and consultant also took him to many foreign lands. Charles told many amazing stories of his work adventures in several South American countries including Columbia and Ecuador where he had to be protected by the local military from kidnapping by hostile guerillas. He also spent years working in the Middle East to include rigs near Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. He arrived for his first 28-day Middle East tour on Christmas Eve in 1991, in Sharjah in the UAE. He recalled that on Christmas morning he awoke to a landscape of sand dunes instead of the snow-covered hills of Michigan that he had just left.
His personal life began to change in 1952, when Charles was enrolled at St. Gregory's Boys Boarding Catholic High School and College in Shawnee, OK where he got a quality education, graduating as the class Salutatorian with a 3.8 grade average. He earned his tuition money every summer when he returned to Kansas to work various jobs. One summer he worked on the Glen Strouse wheat harvest with a 1938 model D John Deere tractor. At the end of harvest, he announced that if he "lived to be 100, he would never ride a tractor again". He was proud when he bought his first car, a 1941 Ford coupe for $75 at age 14. He left his "hot-rod" at home in McPherson while he attended St. Gregory's. When Charles returned home for Thanksgiving, he was shocked that his Ford coupe was gone. While he had been at school, his dad Cecil had borrowed his car and informed Charles that "no one needs a car that drives like that" and offered him a much slower 6-cylinder Chevy later.
During his senior year at school, Charles fell in love with a "beautiful girl" who was working at a local drug store in Shawnee. He married Jacquelyn Slaymaker at St. Benedict's Catholic Church in Shawnee on July 30, 1956. They lived in an apartment while Charles worked at a service station and started college at St. Gregory's. He had to drop out and get a full-time job when they found out that they were expecting with their oldest child, Patricia. Charles and Jacquie had eight children, 5 girls and 3 boys by the time they were 26. Even though Charles was absent for work duties, he was a caring and loving dad who was active in his children's lives. He was a rock on whom they could depend.
Wherever life took him, Charles stayed active in the Catholic Church, administering Holy Communion as LEM, Knights of Columbus, and other groups, but was fondest of teaching the early Thursday morning Men's Study Group at St. John's Catholic Church in Edmond, OK. Throughout his life, Charles remained close to the Abbot and monks at St. Gregory's Benedictine Abbey on the former schoolgrounds of St. Gregory's Boys School and became an Oblate of the Abbey. As an Oblate, Charles experienced an even deeper spirituality and developed deep friendships with the monks with his life of service to others. |