Donald F. Krach
Life insurance salesman and Army Reserve member was a lifelong Baltimorean with a strong belief in law and order
Donald F. Krach, who had a combined 35-year career in the life insurance industry and Army Reserve, died Jan. 27 at Greater Baltimore Medical Center in Towson of complications from intestinal blockage. He was 87.
Mr. Krach was born Feb. 27, 1935, in Baltimore to August and Dorothy Krach and raised in the Govans neighborhood. His father was a stonemason and his mother a homemaker.
He attended Govans Elementary School and Roland Park Elementary/Middle School and graduated from Baltimore City College High School in 1953. He earned a bachelor’s in history from the Johns Hopkins University in 1957 and completed the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.
He married Carole Jean Shenton the following year in Baltimore City and had two children, Donna J. Reuter and Kenneth F. Krach. They settled in Cockeysville in the late 1980s and lived a quiet life, Mrs. Krach said.
“He has been a lifelong Baltimorean,” said Mrs. Krach, 84. “He believed in doing the right thing and doing it as well as he could.”
Mr. Krach did not push life insurance on people who did not need it, his daughter said. He started working for New York Life Insurance in the early 1960s.
“He would always take the time to get to know the people who were looking to buy life insurance,” she said. “Sometimes he would talk people down into buying less.”
Mr. Krach was in the Army Reserve from 1958 to 1989. He loved everything about the military and rose through the ranks from second lieutenant to colonel, his children said.
“He was kind of law and order, but he wasn’t super strict,” his son said. “He was strict when it came to morals and ethics. He wanted us to be good people. He wanted us to be honest people.”
It was part of his “military bearing” to “follow the rules,” Kenneth Krach said. “He felt personal honor was a value to uphold.”
During his tenure, he was commanding officer of the 2053rd Reception Battalion in Baltimore; adjutant general and assistant G4 with the 97th Army Reserve Command in Fort Meade; and center commander of the 352nd Civil Affairs Command in Riverdale.
Some of his military awards include the Legion of Merit and Meritorious Service Medal with oak leaf cluster.
Mr. Krach was an avid fly fisherman. “Every chance he got, he would fish in the summer. He would fish in the winter. He would even go ice fishing,” his daughter said, adding that her father hunted sometimes but ended up being a person who fed the deer instead of shooting them.
He was an outdoorsman and a steward of the environment, Kenneth Krach said. The father and son would often clean up the areas where they went fishing.
“It wasn’t enough to not leave our own trash behind,” he said. “We left it even better than when we found it.”
Staying put in one place to raise a family was also important to his father, Kenneth Krach said. This was one of the reasons Mr. Krach didn’t seek an upper-level position at the insurance company.
“He did not want to move the kids all around the country . ... He wanted them to have roots,” Kenneth Krach said.
Mr. Krach was also a member of the National Association of Life Underwriters, Trout Unlimited, the Reserve Officer Association and Army Reserve Liaison to the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve.
In addition to his wife, daughter and son, he is survived by four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
A service was held Feb. 4 at Lemmon Funeral Home of Dulaney Valley in Timonium, followed by interment at Parkwood Cemetery.