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Victor Edwin Cherven
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June 22, 1918 ~ May 27, 2013 |
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May 28, 2013 |
 Victor
E. Cherven passed away unexpectedly on Monday
May 27, 2013, at his home in Bonners Ferry,
Idaho. He would have been 95 later this month.
Victor was born June 22, 1918, the eldest of
four children born to Victor W. and Anna D.
Cherven of Holland, Michigan. He attended school
in Holland, where he was active in both sports
and music.
He formed Vic Cherven Jr.’s Chicago Cubs Juniors
sandlot baseball team in 1928, which swept
through the other sandlot teams in the area for
several years. This was before the inception of
organized Little League or school-sponsored
baseball in Holland.
As a teenager, he learned to play the piano and
cornet and became fascinated with the big bands
in the 1930s. In 1934, he formed his own jazz
band with the intention of becoming a
professional dance band leader. After graduating
from Holland High, he enrolled in the Music
School at the University of Michigan, graduating
with a Bachelor of Music Degree in 1940.
While at the U of M, his interests turned to
composing and conducting, and the University
Band and University Symphony performed a number
of his compositions. Both his Lake Michigan
Suite and Michigan Fanfare were later recorded.
After graduation he began graduate studies at
Yale University under the famed Paul Hindemith,
one of the greatest American composers of the
20th Century.
His education was interrupted by World War II
when he was drafted into the US Army in 1941.
Initially assigned to artillery duty with the
Arkansas National Guard at Fort Sill, Oklahoma,
he transferred to the Army Air Corps in 1942.
After training as a celestial navigator, he was
assigned to the Air Transport Command, where he
served until the end of the war ferrying B-25s,
B-17s, and other aircraft to the African, Asian,
and European theaters.
In August 1945, Lieutenant Cherven’s air crew
landed in Japan to prepare for General Douglas
MacArthur’s arrival and the subsequent American
occupation. An article in the Holland Sentinel
proclaimed him the first Holland man to set foot
on Japanese soil.
After the war, he returned to Holland and worked
briefly for the Holland Furnace Company, where
his father had been an engineer. In 1947 he
formed a partnership with a wartime buddy and
the pair purchased the ABC Recreation bowling
alley in Toledo. One of his top bowlers was
Mabel Louisa Martens, who had worked at the
Willys Overland plant and then the Packard Motor
Co. during the war.
Her beautiful red hair caught his eye and the
two were married in 1948. The following year
they had a son, Vic Jr.
With help from his partner, Vic built the
family’s first home in Point Place.
In the early years of their marriage, Vic also
worked as a part-time brakeman for the New York
Central Railroad in Toledo, while Mabel worked
in the administrative offices of the A&P Tea Co.
Vic’s love of trains developed into a life-long
hobby, and he and Vic Jr. built their first
model railroad together.
In 1955, he left the bowling business and
returned to music, and for the next eight years
he taught instrumental music in South Toledo,
traveling between Arlington, Harvard, Beverly,
and other elementary schools. Two of his prized
students, Dennis Russell Davies and Mary Linda
Durrell, went on to the Julliard School to major
in music performance and became professional
musicians.
In 1959, Vic earned a Master’s Degree in Music
Education from the University of Michigan. In
the early 1960s he taught band and orchestra at
Start High School. In 1963, Mr. Cherven moved
his family to the San Francisco Bay Area and he
continued his teaching career in the Oakland and
Concord public school districts. One of his
violin students matriculated at the Julliard
School and later had a successful career with
the San Francisco Opera Orchestra.
Mr. and Mrs. Cherven retired in 1986 and moved
to the small town of Valley Springs in the
California Gold Country. They were avid golfers
and each scored a hole-in-one after age 70. He
also rekindled his interest in model
railroading, and he and Vic Jr. built their
second railroad during the next 18 years.
Mountaineering was another of their hobbies, and
Vic Sr. was expedition leader on more than 30
climbs in the High Sierras and in Yosemite
Valley that they and several friends made
between 1967 and 2000. His last climb came at
the age of 82.
Vic Jr. and his wife Linda were very close to
the senior Chervens and moved from Sacramento in
1996 to be nearer to them when Mabel was
diagnosed with Alzheimers.
In 2005, the two families embarked on a new
adventure and moved to northern Idaho.
Mabel passed away in 2006, and after that Vic
went to live with his son and daughter-in-law.
He spent much of the remainder of his life
building their third model railroad, a large and
elaborate S scale layout that depicts the
Southern Pacific in the San Francisco Bay Area
and Central Valley in the 1950s.
In addition to his wife, Victor was preceded in
death by sisters Anita Morrell Hoover of
Plainwell, Michigan and Selma Michuda of Dyer,
Indiana.
Along with his son and daughter-in-law, he is
survived by sister Donna Gress and husband Chuck
of Byron Center, Michigan and numerous nieces
and nephews.
Burial will take place at the Pilgrim Home
Cemetery in Holland, Michigan in July. |
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