Arnold Kovach

Obituary "Arnie" a Life Well Lived Arnold Andrew Kovach was born in Tacoma Washington on Oct. 1st 1926 and departed this life on Oct. 21st 2015 during the 90th year of a life that was filled with love and devotion for Ardythe, his dear wife of 64 years and his 6 children, 16 grandchildren, and 4 great grandchildren.In addition to his loving wife he is survived by all 6 of his children, Shari Ann Roland(husband Jim), Andrew Steven (wife Nell), Lisa Marie Schaff (husband Bob), Timothy Andrew, Kari Kovach-Moffitt (Husband Kent), and Paul Arnold (wife Julie). Arnie's funeral will be held at St. Charles Borromeo Church at 9:00 A.M. on Monday October 26th. There will be a reception in the Parish Hall following the Funeral Mass. The Rite of Committal will be at Tahoma National Cemetery in Kent, WA. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Habitat for Humanity. Arnie the youngest of 5 children grew up on Mckinley Hill in Tacoma, he attended Sacred Heart Grade School and Bellarmine Prepratory High School. He worked as a forester and logging truck driver with his lifelong friend Bill Cline for the Roosevelt CCC before signing up for military service at age 17. He was inducted on October 21st 1944 and served as a Radioman on the Battleship the USS Estes. He was discharged from the service in 1948 earning the Asiatic Pacific Area Campaign Medal and WWII Victory Medal. After the war he moved in with his older brother Jeff in LaGrande Oregon starting an orchard spraying service while Jeff established his large animal veterinary clinic. Arnie lived with his brother until Jeff married our Aunt Ruth. In 1949 he attended dental school in Seattle. He moved to Portland to practice his new profession but the dental work did not agree with him and he moved back to Tacoma briefly working at a service station before getting a job as a truck driver for Blake Moffitt and Towne. He propose marriage in August of 1950 to his love Ardythe Darlene Langendorfer. On February 3rd 1951 they were married. Soon after he was promoted from truck driver to inside sales and thus began his illustrious career in the paper sales industry with Blake, Moffitt, and Towne paper company where he worked until his retirement in 1991. Arnie was consistently top in sales throughout his career and very well known and admired in the industry. Arnie and Ardythe raised 6 children in the house he built on Berkeley Avenue in the town of Fircrest where they lived together for over 64 years. Arnie was an avid outdoorsman. He loved nature and anything to do with farming, gardening, logging, hunting, and fishing. Mushroom hunting was a family favorite activity, he knew all the best hidden spots. During his younger years he would hunt with his father-in-law Art Langendorfer and life long friend Dick Renner often bringing home deer, rabbit, and an occasional bear. Arnie purchased wooded acreage near Eatonville where the family spent many a weekend conducting prudent forestry practices clearing underbrush and thinning trees allowing the best to flourish. At the same time he would help tend the family farms in Sedro Woolley and Burlington, helping with the cattle and haying, making often needed repairs and maintenance. After retirement he would often go by himself and spend long weekends on the farm, camping out in a little camper trailer while tending to various farm chores. When the kids were growing up camping and road trips were a must. There was an old heavy 8 person canvas army tent he always pack in and we'd always bring back some memento from each outing, typically a choice rock or two, sometimes almost too sizable to get into the station wagon. He loved seeing how large a stone we could move and how far it could be carried! In Arnie's mind there was a direct correlation between how hard you worked and how much fun you had. There was no having one without the other. Arnie loved his work in paper sales because he loved helping people. He loved being on the road, taking care of his many accounts helping to improve their businesses. He developed lifelong relationships with many of his customers. They were always offering beach cabins and other getaways to Arnie in appreciation of his hard work and their subsequent business success. Always top in sales our home was full of best-in-sales awards. To this day we still use one or two of the barbecues he earned. Golf club sets, lawn furniture, ice chests, yard games, camping gear...you name it, he was always bringing cool stuff home. The kids remember waking up to the sound of typing from Mom and Dad's bedroom early every morning before school. Arnie and Ardythe would rise before 5:00 each day. Dad would dictate his daily sales orders while Mom did the typing. Dad would gather up his newly typed sales orders after breakfast and announce "the bus is leaving" and off to school we would go at 7:00 where we'd play or do homework until classes started at 8:00. Arnie would return home between 6:00 and 8:00 to have dinner with the family then read the paper to relax. Life was busy but it was good. Later in his career things changed somewhat when Arnie's sales experience and sales record triggered an appointment to sales manager. He missed being on the road helping his customers so luckily he was able to get back back on the road briefly before his retirement in September 1991. In Arnie's spare time after retirement he worked tirelessly for years for the Tacoma Elks Club as a greeter and for numerous service related activities such as collecting deer hides and delivering them to the local tannery which would pay for the hides. The proceeds went to the Elks club to be used for various charities. He also worked in the Cannery, canning donated produce and vegetables for the food bank once a week. When he was not working on his own projects he was helping others with theirs. Arnie was frugal in all matters. Though a man of means he always lived modestly. He rarely bought anything new for example, army surplus was just fine. A little bit of paint and elbow grease took care of the rust, a few minor repairs and it was good as new. His choice of tools was always limited. His chainsaw, band-saw, axe and shovel, maybe a hammer, that's all we needed for the work he loved to do such as falling trees, chopping firewood, building slash fires, hacking back the ever growing blackberries. Blackberries, now there was a love/hate relationship, seemed like we were always picking blackberries for pies or cutting them down as weeds. For Arnie, it was really never about having a list of things to get done, it was a list of things to do. He lived for the doing. He never set goals such as " today we'll clear two acres", it was more like, "today we'll do some clearing" and we worked till we ran out of daylight. What we accomplished during that time was it. We never had more to do or less to do, we never once finished early, we simply worked until we couldn't work any more. When Arnie said "get your boots, we are headed up to the property " or "we are headed up to the farm" it always meant we'd leave at daybreak and return when it was dark. As kids we didn't always cherish the thought. Friends rarely joined us because they all knew what it meant to work with Arnie , you worked! Looking back we cherish those moments, being outside in the fresh air, surrounded by nature, getting dirty and tired but feeling accomplished. We would not trade those moments with Dad away for anything now and so glad he demanded the most of us. Arnie was a stubborn sort. When he made his mind up that was that. I can't recall a single instance of a reversal, ever. There was always a sense of permanence to his decisions. Fircrest was his home for life, Ardythe was his wife for life, Blake Moffit, and Towne was his job for life, Dick Renner and Bill Cline were his buddies for life. He made his choices carefully and never looked back. It was hard to argue with him. He listened and gathered information and facts then quickly came to a conclusion that was unshakable. His strong moral compass helped guide him in his decision making. He was a rough and tumble guy and a little rough around the edges, especially later in life having to cope with an age of political correctness that contrasted sharply with his tough, neighborhood /war era sensibilities. Confrontations with Arnie's stubbornness could get quite colorful in so many ways, but there was always the underlying tone of what's right and what's wrong as the basis for any argument. You did not want to cross Arnie. He would never forget and if he felt he was wronged, well... he was a fighter. He would fight for justice. Things needed to be square and you would not want to be on his bad side. I have never met anyone more fearless or self confident. He never doubted a decision and always moved forward. Arnie developed diabetes in his mid 60's and a decade after retirement he lost the use of his kidney's. He spent the next 16 years on dialysis taking day long treatments 3 days a week for the rest of his life. He started losing his vision about the same time becoming nearly blind a decade later. Broken bones from hunting and farm accidents made walking a challenge. You would think these hardships would be devastating to such a man of action but Arnie bore his cross in stride. He dedicated the rest of his life to truly knowing his children, his family, his friends, the children of friends, and also pets. He began living life vicariously through others. He created an alter "Arnie" world. It was a beautiful world filled with peoples accomplishments. He knew every detail which he would embellish and share with anyone who would listen. Arnie became command central. All family and frien