Charles Ray O'Neal

Charles Ray O'Neal, 93, passed away peacefully on December 14, 2015, at the Northwest Louisiana War Veterans Home in Bossier City, La. He leaves behind extended family and friends who know that he is glad to finally be reunited with his beloved wife and fishing buddy, Zera. Charles was born on February 27, 1922, near Colfax, La., the youngest son of Marie Elzie LaCaze and Henry Wesley O'Neal, who had nine children. Charles outlived all his siblings and, like the Frank Sinatra song, he lived life his way almost to the very end. Growing up in a large family during the Great Depression, Charles left home at age 17 to join the U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps to help take the burden off his carpenter father and homemaker mother trying to make ends meet. He often reminisced about his ""CCC service,"" where he worked in California and other states building national parks and various public infrastructure for a country trying to help its struggling families survive. In August 1942, after World War II broke out, Charles joined the service and rose to the rank of Sergeant in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He was always proud of his WWII service and liked to tell - and retell - stories of his times stationed in North Africa and Italy. When the war ended, Charles returned to his home state and got a job as a bus driver for Continental Trailways, where he worked until retiring in 1974. He was very proud of the award his company gave him in 1970 for driving its buses more than 1 million miles without an accident. It was also while driving the bus that he met his future wife, Zera, who regularly rode the bus from Shreveport, where she worked, to visit her family home near Ruston. Charles and Zera married in 1954, settled in Shreveport, and the following year welcomed their first child, Bonnie Cherie, into the family. Donna Marie was born five years later and son Charles Wesley arrived in 1963. Charles and Zera were very proud of their children; many decades later, Charles would often play on his stereo a favorite Moe Bandy song because he especially liked the chorus: ""Let me watch my children grow to see what they become; Oh Lord, don't let that cold wind blow till I'm too old to die young."" He lived to see that prayer answered. Listening to country music was a favorite hobby, and as a young man Charles would visit the local Municipal Auditorium to attend the Louisiana Hayride music show on Saturday nights. He also loved to collect and give new life to all sorts of things he would find that others had discarded. He was a lifelong tinkerer, being a self-taught carpenter, auto repairman, electrician, painter and bicycle mechanic. He built bikes from scrap parts and rode them until he was well into his 80s. After he retired, Charles and Zera loved to bass fish on nearby Wallace Lake, often rising before dawn and going back to the lake again after lunch. They also liked to hunt for coins and jewelry on schoolyards with metal detectors and take long drives in the countryside. After Zera made her transition in 1990, Charles often would remark, ""Oh what a life without a wife,"" and what a good person she was to him and their children. Charles loved nature and often wondered with a child-like reverence about the beauty of ""Old Mother Earth"" that she displayed in the fresh spring flowers and multicolor carpet of fall leaves - his most favorite seasons. He enjoyed nature programs on TV and hung photos of outdoor landscapes all over his house. Even as the world transitioned to the computer and Internet, Charles would continue to communicate via hand-written letters, always reporting on the local weather and rarely closing without admonishing one to ""take your vitamins and don't forget your fish oil"" for good health. Charles is survived by his children, Bonnie Vanni (Ron), Donna (Linda), Charles (Donna); four grandchildren, Nick Vanni (Courtney), Allana Gremillion, Bethany O'Neal, and Cherie O'Neal; three great-grandchildren; many nephews, nieces and cousins; and extended family and friends he made through his children, in the neighborhood, at the bank, grocery store and all his favorite visiting places. A visitation for Charles will be from 3 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, December 20, at Forest Park Funeral Home and Cemeteries, 1201 Louisiana Ave., Shreveport, La., 71101. (www.forestparkfh.com 318-221-7181). Services will begin at 10 a.m. on Monday, December 21, in the Wellman Memorial Chapel at Forest Park Funeral Home. Burial, with military honors, will be at 12:30 p.m. Monday at Forest Park Cemetery West, 4000 Meriwether Road, Shreveport, La., 71109 (318-686-1461). In lieu of flowers, a donation may be made to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, 406 West 34th Street Kansas City, MO 64111 or online at http://www.vfw.org/Contribute/ SERVICES Visitation Sunday, December 20, 2015 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM Forest Park Funeral Home 1201 Louisiana Ave. Shreveport, Louisiana 71101 Funeral Service Monday, December 21, 2015 10:00 AM Forest Park Funeral Home 1201 Louisiana Ave. Shreveport, Louisiana 71101