49.0°,
Mostly Cloudy Celebrating a long and successful life in Hewlett
Husband, father, grandfather, business owner and Far Rockaway native turns 90
William E. Koehler has lived in Hewlett for 80 years, co-owned a family business, served in the Navy, built his own house and worked as a carpenter and pallbearer. On Saturday, he and his family will celebrate his 90th birthday.
A Far Rockaway native, he was born on Jan. 28, 1927, and then came to live with his aunt, Louise Koehler, in Hewlett, when he was 10 because his father could no longer care for him and his mother died when he was a baby.
Louise Koehler was a co-owner of Bergman’s Florist on Broadway in Hewlett next to Hewlett Elementary School, where William, known to friends and family as Bill, first began to work, his daughter, Kerry Koehler, said. He served in the U.S. Naval Air Corp in 1946 and ‘47 in Corpus Christi, Texas. He stayed on as a co-owner of the florist until the business, where all of his children worked from a young age, closed in 1971.
He and his wife, Mary Ann Watts Koehler, from Inwood, have been married since 1950. She is 85. They live on Broadway in Hewlett in a house that he and his uncle, Thomas Minnigan, built in 1957. Minnigan was a builder by trade.
Koehler went to work as a carpenter for the Hewlett-Woodmere School District for 22 years beginning in 1971, and then as a pallbearer for Hempstead-based Reisert’s Limousine Service for 15 years before retiring in 2008.
Involved in his community as he was with work, Koehler was also a member of the Hewlett Fire Department for about 63 years. He served as chief between 1982 and 1990 and fire commissioner between 1990 and 1994. He also served as a delegate to the Nassau County Fire Fighters Burn Center for about 10 years for the county’s Third Battalion.
His interests range from car racing, boating and carpentry along with watching sports and spending time with his family including sons-in-law: Alfred Lapp and Lance Fera, as well as his grandchildren: Lindsay and David Schultz, Kyle and Emily Fera and Ashley Lapp.
All three daughters the Koehlers raised have fond memories of their father.
Kim Fera, 61, remembers her father letting let her tag along with him wherever he went. From car races in Islip to fishing on a boat to building furniture, she was his sidekick. “I was his shadow and I loved it,” she said.
For about 30 years, Kerry Koehler, 63, was a special education teacher in the East Rockaway School District. “He gave up a lot of his own free time to provide for his family,” she said, of the sacrifices her father made throughout his life.
Kathy Lapp, 65, followed in her dad’s footsteps as a volunteer as the retired school administrator is a past president and current treasurer of the Hewlett Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary, and president of the Nassau County Homemakers Woodmere-Lynbrook chapter.
Noting her father’s longevity, Lapp said that of his seven uncles and aunts, all but one of them lived into their 80s, 90s and 100s. “His family has wonderful genes,” she said.
“I am like them, I guess … longer time to appreciate family, my children and grandchildren,” Bill said of his lineage. “I love when they visit. That makes life special.”
