William Charles "Bill" Loeffler Sr.

He wasn’t just a guy. He was someone’s husband, someone’s father, someone’s son, someone’s friend. He was that guy in the corner of the room with a smile on his face. Bill Loeffler once said he wouldn’t trade his life for anything. “He just loved me right from the start,” his wife, Maureen Loeffler, said. William “Bill” Charles Loeffler, Sr. died Dec. 28, 2017, after a short battle with Lymphoma. He was 64 years old. Born on Feb. 19, 1953, in Brooklyn, Bill was raised in Queens’ Ridgewood neighborhood and graduated from Grover Cleveland High School in 1970. He often told his children stories of playing stickball in the streets until dinnertime, going to New York Yankee baseball games and eating his grandmother’s sauerbraten and potato balls that he could smell from her apartment street. He met Maureen, his wife of 40 years, on Christmas Day in 1974. Exactly a year later, he asked her to marry him. They were wedded on Nov. 5, 1977, on a cloudy, rainy day -- a sign for good luck, Maureen said. “I had such a smile on my face walking up the aisle. … I was just beaming,” she said. “And I remember by the end of the night, my cheeks hurt me I was smiling so much. I was so happy.” The couple had two sons, Bill Jr. and Rick. “The boys were his life,” Maureen said. “You know how they say when you’re married ‘don’t let your kids run your life.’ … He never believed that,” Maureen said. “We were a family until they were gone, and we needed to do things as a foursome. It was very important to him for us all to be together.” In September 1987, the family moved from Long Island, where Bill had worked as a mail carrier with the U.S. Postal Service, to Tulsa for a job sorting mail in the distribution center. They bought a house in Broken Arrow, where Bill taught Rick how to throw a baseball and played catch with his sons in the front yard. But Bill always wanted to keep New York close -- even while living in Oklahoma -- subscribing to New York newspapers and broadcast stations and befriending New York transplants in Tulsa. “We just had a piece of New York here,” Bill Jr. said. “It’s like we grew up in the Eastern time zone,” Rick joked. In the evenings, Bill and his sons watched Yankee games in the living room. Bill leaned back in a recliner and would toss a squishy ball to Rick, who fielded it among the couch, chairs and coffee table. “Stink!” Bill would yell whenever Rick missed one. When Rick left for college and later got married, they’d call each other to discuss baseball news and every winning Yankee game. There was no phone call if they lost. “It kept us together even when I wasn’t here,” Rick said. Bill could recite almost every song lyric from the 1950s and 1960s, and particularly loved Elvis Presley tunes. Music was a constant in the Loeffler home, and he passed on a love for the Beatles and doo-wop groups to his now 30-something-year-old sons. He harbored an extensive collection of model vintage cars in a case at home, often telling his sons stories of the old Fords his dad used to drive. Every year, he and Bill Jr. would go to the Tulsa Auto Show. As they walked through the old cars, Bill would tell his son about “the good old days” and his neighbors and friends that used to drive them like when he would ride around with his friend John in a 1972 Corvette. “It was a nostalgic connection,” Bill Jr. said. Bill didn’t attend college. But he always wanted his sons to go. “I don’t think he knew how to get in or what it entailed, but he thought going would lead to more success for us,” Bill Jr. said. But most of all, his sons say he modeled an ethical life, teaching them the value of family and tradition. Night and morning, they gathered for meals around a wooden dining room table -- an important congregating spot for Bill. Usually, Bill was at the stove, gently pushing scrambled eggs for breakfast in a pan and piling them high on a plate to be passed. “Toast, juice, banana?” he’d offer, plopping the plate of eggs on the table. “He always wanted to make sure everyone was comfortable,” Bill Jr. said. “Satisfied from a hunger standpoint,” Rick joked. Maureen called him a gentleman, saying he never missed a chance to hold the door for her and taught his sons to do the same. And at night, as they slid under the covers, he’d tell her, “Goodnight, Hon.” “That was our thing,” she said. *** Visitation will be Tuesday from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. with a rosary at 7 p.m. at Hayhurst Funeral Home, 1660 S. Elm Place in Broken Arrow. A funeral Mass will be 11 a.m. Wednesday at St. Benedict Catholic Church, 2200 W. Ithica St. in Broken Arrow. Burial will follow at Floral Haven Memorial Gardens. Bill is survived by his wife, Maureen of Bixby; son William “Bill” Loeffler, Jr. of Bixby; son Richard Loeffler of Dallas; brother Charles Loeffler of Marion, Ind.; and one granddaughter. He was preceded in death by his daughter Karen Loeffler; parents Charles and Ann Loeffler; and brother Jack Loeffler.

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William Charles "Bill" Loeffler Sr.

February 19, 1953 - December 28, 2017