Beloved prankster put his family first
Few people can claim picnics and pranks as their biggest passions, but Raymond William Heusey was one of them.
One Easter, his children returned home to find unmarked boxes, only to discover them filled with chickens. In retaliation, Mr. Heusey received a miniature goat on Father’s Day, which lived with the family for several years afterward.
Mr. Heusey, who lived in the Fombell section of Franklin, Beaver County, pranked his grandchildren, too, instigating water balloon and squirt gun fights that left them sopping wet. “My one granddaughter said he wasn’t happy with water guns; he threw buckets of water,” said Joyce Heusey, Mr. Heusey’s wife of 60 years.
Mr. Heusey died of cardiopulmonary illness at Ellwood City Hospital on May 23, just weeks after celebrating his 80th birthday with loved ones over a steak dinner.
The couple met in a business class at Etna High School. They married in 1957, two years after graduation.
Over the years, Mr. Heusey worked first as a selfemployed handyman before becoming a press operator at Halstead Industries in Zelienople and eventually joining the Iron Workers Local Union No. 3 and working his way up to the job of steel erector.
Mrs. Heusey said her husband passed his work ethic on to his four children, but placed a high priority on his family.
“He declined overtime because he didn’t want to be working all the time and not be with his family,” said his daughter, Beth Speicher of Portersville.
In the 1980s, her mother went back to work while her father stayed home, always making sure to have a cup of tea ready for his wife when she walked in the door.
During the holidays, Mr. Heusey would welcome people into his home who did not have a place to go. Mrs. Heusey said their family hosted “extras” at least every other year.
Year-round, he would do handyman work for the family’s neighbors whenever he could, fixing plumbing and making repairs around the house.
“He would do anything in the world for his family,” Mrs. Heusey said. “I’m not just talking about his immediate family.”
She said the Thanksgiving table got longer as their family grew to include four children, seven grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and 16 nieces and nephews. His broad family also included neighbors’ children.
“The kids that came around called my parents ‘mom and dad,’” Mrs. Speicher said. “He was dad to more than just four of us.”
AmyJo Brown, one of Mr. Heusey’s grandchildren, said Mr. Heusey was open to different ideas, remembering how when she and her siblings were dropped off at his house on summer mornings, they would find him sitting at the kitchen table, listening to Rush Limbaugh so that he could argue with the radio. The way he treated members of the younger generations “as peers” and the fact that he took care of the grandchildren at home while Mrs. Heusey worked cemented him as a nontraditional male role model, Mrs. Brown said.
“For all of those reasons, he was his own person,” she said.
In addition to his wife and daughter, Mr. Heusey is survived by his three other children: Linda Brown of Beaver Falls, Raymond C. Heusey of Beaver Falls and Kenneth R. Heusey of Los Angeles; his brothers, Robert Heusey of Laurel Gardens and Rick Heusey of Fombell; his sister, Beverly Speicher of Fombell; seven grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
Mr. Heusey’s family will celebrate his life with a memorial and picnic dinner at their home on Sunday. Arrangements are being handled by Boylan Funeral Home Inc. of Zelienople.