Victor Edwin Cherven
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.