Robert L. Carpenter (1949-2021)
May 12—WAYNE, Ohio — Robert L. Carpenter, a farmer, insurance agent, and auctioneer who volunteered on international mission trips — and who had been a pastor, gospel music singer, and truck driver, died Monday at University Hospitals Elyria Medical Center, Elyria, Ohio. He was 72.
He developed complications after a heart attack suffered April 22, his daughter Tammy Churchill said.
Mr. Carpenter, of Wood County's Montgomery Township, had no intention of retiring. He'd already planted a field of corn this spring. A licensed insurance agent since 1984, he was president of Prairie Depot Insurance Agency in Risingsun, Ohio, which he founded and co-owned with daughter Tammy. Early clients led to successive generations in some families who relied on Mr. Carpenter.
"He had the gift of gab," his daughter said. "He loved to talk to people. He was interested in what they did and wanted to learn how they did their jobs."
He conducted auctions across the state — farm, household, benefit auctions — and was in his second term on the Ohio Auctioneers' Association board of directors.
"Robert was never self-serving and always put what was best for the OAA at the forefront of his actions," Seth Andrews, the association's president, said in a post on the funeral home site. "He was selfless, respectful, and passionate about the auction profession and the Ohio Auctioneers' Association. He didn't care whether you had 100 auctions a year or two, he was your friend and always willing to lend an ear to whatever may be going on in your auction business."
His daughter said: "When he did something, he got involved."
Advertisement
He made mission trips much of his life, within the United States and to Latin America and Africa. He was a frequent visitor to Haiti, where with a Christian farmers' fellowship, he helped fashion grain silos into needed housing in the aftermath of natural disaster. He was on the board of Living Hope Ministries in Haiti.
"He wanted to be the church outside the church, the hands and feet of Jesus," his daughter said.
He was born April 18, 1949 to Geneva and Merle Carpenter. Home remained the house where he was born. He was a 1968 graduate of Elmwood High School. He later drove school buses part time for the district.
Farming was the first of his vocations.
"He grew up helping Grandpa on the farm," his daughter said. On occasion, the Carpenters raised hogs and cattle. Mostly he grew corn, wheat, and soybeans.
"He enjoyed being out in the field and out in nature," his daughter said.
During the 1970s and 1980s, he was an over-the-road trucker, gone as long as a week at a time.
He served as pastor of the former Victory Evangelical Church in Risingsun. Until the early 1990s, he sang tenor in the Joyful Heirs, a gospel music group invited to perform by churches across Ohio and beyond.
He was a collector of old-time farm machinery and was a past treasurer of Sandusky County Restorers of Antique Power.
"He said he never worked a day in his life, because he enjoyed everything he did," his daughter said, "and retirement wasn't in his vocabulary."
He and the former Linda Bateson married Sept. 19, 1968. She died Jan. 29, 2012.
Surviving are his wife, the former Melissa Cervelli, whom he married Sept. 4, 2015; daughters, Tammy Churchill and Rebecca Scherf; stepdaughters, Nicole Purkeypile and Jessica Wilhelm; stepson, Curtis Resor; brothers, Dan, James, and Rodney Carpenter; four grandchildren, seven step-grandchildren, and a great-grandson.
A walk-through visitation will be from 2-4 p.m. and 5-8 p.m. Thursday at Hoening & Son Funeral Home, 133 W. Tiffin St., Fostoria. Funeral services will begin at 10 a.m. Friday at Ole Zim's Wagon Shed on State Rt. 590 near Gibsonburg, Ohio, where his antique tractors will be lined up outside.
The family suggests tributes to Samaritan's Purse and Operation Christmas Child, both of Boone, N.C., and Living Waters and Laurel Mission, both of Kentucky.
