Dub passed away peacefully, at the age of 90, after a short struggle with kidney disease. Family and friends gave him encouragement and love during his illness, hoping he would stay with us, but he had other plans.
He was born in Duke, Okla., to Lon and Bertha Vossler, and his family later moved to Texas. He would laugh at the times in his teen years when he and friends would hop on a freight train and ride the rails to any destination the train was going, knowing what lay in store for him when he got home days later!
Dub was always a hard worker, starting when he was still a boy, and worked on his uncle’s farm, planting and picking cotton or crop of the season, but still finding time to sneak off and take a dip in the reservoir on hot summer days. He worked at the Armor Meat Packing Plant in Ft. Worth, Texas, and then in 1939 he moved to Fillmore, where he worked at the M.O.D. Packing Plant, receiving and packing oranges. He would also go out into the groves and tent the trees when it was time to fumigate them for citrus pests, a job that he called dirty and backbreaking.
It was also in 1939 that he met Joyce Patterson, and it became a wartime romance that led into a union of 70 years. They were married in Las Vegas in 1941, and soon moved to Long Beach to help the WWII effort at the shipyards and Douglas Aircraft. Dub was inducted into the U.S Army in 1943, where he served in the South Pacific Islands of New Caldonia, Guadalcanal, New Georgia, and New Guinea as an aviation engineer, maintaining fuel storage facilities for aviation fuel, diesel for ships, and regular gasoline for vehicles (total storage facility, 5 million gals). At the end of his military service in 1946, he held the rank of Tech. Sergeant 4.
Returning to Fillmore after WWII, he went to work for Texaco as a meter man. He and Joyce build their first home, raised a son and 2 daughters there, and then he decided to take early retirement in 1979, after 33 years with Texaco. They moved to Sheridan, Montana, where they build their second home. He had a lifelong passion for the outdoors, and loved to hunt, fish, camp in Montana, he was able to go on cattle drives riding his one-man horse, Babe. He liked to read the old West stories by Louis L’amour, sometimes more than one or twice. Having lived a full life, he always had a funny story to tell on himself or one of his hunting buddies. They made many lifelong friends during their 23 years in Montana, and after moving to Fillmore once again, they continued to travel back to Big Sky country.
Dub was preceded in death a year ago by his wife of 70 years, Joyce; his parents, five brothers and three sisters; grandson, Michael Vossler; Great-grandson, Joshua Chaves; and great-great granddaughter Jordan Willeford.
Survivors include daughter and sons-in-laws, Linda and Jerry Crockett, and Nancy and Raymond Cervantez, all from Fillmore; son and daughter-in-law, Robert and Sherry Vossler of Lowell, Ore; Brother, Calvin Vossler of Leakey, Texas; Granddaughters, Jennifer Crockett of Oklahoma City, Ok., and Teresa Blankenship of Sonora, Ca.; grandsons Kelly Brown of Ojai, and Casey (Anne) Brown of Tulare, Ca.; Great-grandchildren Rachel Chavez, Brittany, Taylor and Kelsie Brown, and Julian and Brennan Brown; great-great grandson Devin Willeford and many niece and nephews.
Another of America’s “Greatest Generation” is gone.
Visitation will be held from noon to 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 21, at Skillin Carroll Mortuary, 600 Central Ave, Fillmore. Graveside will be held on Monday, April 22, 2013 at 10 a.m., at Bardsdale Cemetery.