Charles “Charlie” Joseph Chetner, 86, found peace at last on Saturday, July 23, 2016 at The Pines at Poughkeepsie following complications from a fall. He was born April 12, 1930 in Lodi Township, NJ before his family relocated to a dairy farm in Cooperstown, NY in 1944. He graduated from Cooperstown High School in 1948 and enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He served as a cook in the Canal Zone and on the USS LST 1071, Panama and was honorably discharged in 1952. He began working at the Hackley School in Tarrytown shortly thereafter.
On October 15, 1955, he married the love of his life, Catherine “Kitty” Furphy in Tarrytown, NY. Subsequently, he began a 38-year career at what became Peoples Westchester Savings Bank. Charlie is predeceased by his parents, Charles Chetner and Helen (Korinek) Chetner. He is survived by his wife, Kitty, his sister, Helen, sons James (Debbi), Michael (Laura), and John (Karen), and daughter Ann (Eric) Kummer, grandchildren Mike (Sara), Holly (Jesse) Schorz, Emily, Megan, Stephanie, Paige, and Joseph and Matthew Kummer, as well as great grandchildren Hailey, Tyler, Jennifer and Allison and Jackson Schorz.
Charlie and the family moved from Tarrytown to Montrose in 1966 and then he and Kitty moved to Fishkill in 2008. While building their family and his career, he volunteered as a firefighter, beginning with Tarrytown’s Washington Engine Company as well as Cortlandt Engine Company and Rombout Fire Company. He served as a fire commissioner at Cortlandt and was honored to serve as Grand Marshal of the Company’s annual parade in 2008. He was also a member of several Roman Catholic Churches (Cooperstown’s St. Mary’s Our Lady of the Lake, Verplanck’s St. Patrick’s, Buchanan’s St. Christopher’s, Fishkill’s St. Mary’s) as well as the Lions Club International and the American Management Society for many years.
While younger, he enjoyed golfing, bowling, walking as well as square and round dancing with Kitty. He also liked camping, puttering around his Montrose vegetable garden, baking vanichka using his mother’s recipe, and cooking monumental batches of applesauce, dinners at Paradise Restaurant in Verplanck and listening to The Eagles. One Christmas, he made red star ornaments for each member of the family, a tradition he continued as the family grew. Aside from packing for trips, he enjoyed traveling to the United Kingdom, especially Ireland, as well as to Florida, Niagara Falls, Hershey, Bermuda, California, and other locations.
After his family, his next greatest love was the family farm in Cooperstown. He relished the outdoors and the solitude of the farm. He cherished, as his family does, the many weekends, vacations, and Thanksgivings spent at the farm, each overflowing with laughter, fun and silliness while fishing, riding around and maintaining the property, planting Christmas trees, witnessing magnificent sunsets, and general camaraderie around the wood stove or fire pit.
Charlie leaves behind a lifetime of memories filled with happiness, laughter, mishaps and shenanigans which his loving family intends to carry on, reminisce, and hold dear, passing down through the generations.

Affiliations

Fire Department
Rombout Fire Dept., Fishkill, NY
US Navy