Frederick Arthur Loeser's Obituary
Frederick Arthur Loeser ws an icon of living California history. "Art" was loved by all who knew him, and was the foundation of his own family and of the family he gained when he married his teenage sweetheart, Mary Charlotte Loeser (nee Speers) (1933-2011_, to whom he returns.
Art was born in the height of the Depression and raised in Watts Tract, Oakland. The fourth of six, he enlisted in the Navy as did each of his brothers in turn. Upon returning from tours in postwar China and Japan, he started a family with Mary and set to work serving a five-year sheet metal apprenticeship while attending night school to earn his high school diploma.
Art lived a life of service as an accomplished industrial sheet metal worker and proud union member of Local 104, with over 70 years in the trade. He instructed apprentices at Laney College and volunteered his expertise generously, including at Lake Merritt's Cameron Stanford House and the Oakland Museum of California.
Proud member of Past Master of Live Oak Lodge #61 Free and Accepted Masons of the State of California, and recipient of the Hiram Award.
Art was a man with an endless inventory of quips and witticisms, a lover of all things England, and a paragon of good health--he joined the earliest days of the jogging craze. Every morning, rain or shine, he could be spotted running on Skyline Boulevard in the Oakland hills. He rowed everyday into his 90s.
Art's crowning achievement was his 65-year marriage to Mary. In love since the first day he drove her home from school in 1947, Art propsed to her on a drive around Lake Merritt. The couple traveled widely and took countless road trips across the continent. Theirs was an abiding adoration.
Art is survived by his two children, Fred Jr. and Mary; grandchildren, Daniel, John, William, and Elle; great-grandchild, Alec; and his multi-decade MG car restoration. He is predeceased by his wife, siblings, and many of his friends. As he liked to say, "You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough." He did it right.
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