Kathleen L. Erard

Kathleen Louise Erard, loving mother, grandmother and lifelong Toledoan, died Wednesday, October 18, 2017 aged 87 of heart failure. She worked as an executive secretary for Libbey Owens Ford (LOF) and the Rice Investment Company. Kathleen Louise Opre was born at Toledo Hospital September 4, 1930 and lived in the Birmingham neighborhood of Toledo as a child. Her parents emigrated from Budapest, Hungary in the early 1900s. Her father, John Opre was an iron worker in the Toledo shipyards and her mother Margaret was a pastry chef. John Opre died when she was 10 and her mother died in 1977. Following graduation from Waite High School in 1948, Kathleen went to work for LOF where she met William D. Erard, LOF's chief structural engineer. Married in 1952, Kathleen suspended her career to raise a large family. She frequently accompanied her husband on his assignments constructing glass manufacturing plants around the world. In 1977 she resumed her career as executive secretary to Samuel Rice Jr., founder of the Rice Investment, a company specializing in commodity futures. The firm became one of the country's largest egg brokers. Possessed with a quick wit, Kathleen described her job as "finding ingredients for giant omelets." She retired in 2015, after Mr. Rice's death. An accomplished fabric artist, she exhibited her work in the early Ann Arbor art fairs. Each year into her 70s she donated one of her hand-made quilts to be sold at the annual Toledo Artists’ Club holiday fund-raiser. Kathleen and William had two daughters and four sons. She volunteered for both Crossgates and St. Patrick of Heatherdowns Elementary Schools’ activities, including a stint as Cub Scout Den Mother. "With four boys," one of her sons recalled, "when she called a scout meeting they were well attended." William Erard died in 2005. Kathleen is survived by sons Jeffery (Michele), Joseph, Jerome (Mary) and Jonathan, and daughters Suzanne Kirshner (Alan) and Mary Jane Erard, four grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, and a sister, Elizabeth Northcott. Funeral services will be private for the family. Memorial tributes can be made to a charity of the donor’s choice. Arrangements were entrusted to Walter Funeral Home. walterfuneralhome.com.