On May 30, George McCullough, of Aurora, Ohio, died a few months ahead of his 91st birthday, having led an engaged and peripatetic life until succumbing to Alzheimer’s. Born in Oklahoma and raised in Shawnee, Centralia, IL, and Charleston, SC, George spent a year at The Citadel before enlisting at 17 and serving in WWII. In 1948, as a sergeant in the US Army in Japan, George obtained an appointment to West Point, which he attended with pride until 1951, when he transferred to Columbia University. There, he met and married his first wife, Lourdes, and received his engineering degree in 1953. George began his career in the Philippines, where he sold mining and farming equipment. He later moved to Oakland, CA to start McCullough Equipment Company. After success in the Bay Area, he again went abroad and co-founded businesses in Singapore (Petro-Sea) and London (Middle East Company; Enfield Barrington). Between overseas stints, he moved his family to Sacramento and summers were spent at Little Grass Valley Reservoir near LaPorte. Among his business accomplishments: his firms built Asia’s largest dry dock, constructed Jakarta’s airport runways, laid airstrips in Borneo and the Sudan, and provided engineering for a planned subway in Baghdad. George retired to Jacksonboro, SC in 1986, where he farmed, kept horses for a local carriage company, and reconnected with his SC, TX, and AR relatives. In 1995, he met his second wife, LaVerne, through mutual friends. They married in 1996 and George moved to Ohio where he took great pleasure in his new life with LaVerne and her friends and family. His army marksmanship improved his odds at the Indigo Shoot with his dear friends at Hunting Valley Gun Club. In 2017, George and LaVerne moved near Chicago to be close to LaVerne’s daughter, Tina. Until a couple of years ago, George continued to enjoy traveling, hunting, and completing (in record time) each day’s crossword puzzle in The New York Times. Committed to the “best,” George was a gifted raconteur, an Anglophile, and a perpetual sportsman (he learned to ski at 53, toboggan at 57, and shoot skeet at 71). He was pleased to endow his offspring with his yen for travel, his fondness for words, and of course his red hair. George is survived by his wife, LaVerne; and sons, Julian (Stephanie) of Americus, GA and Andrew (Theresa) of San Rafael, CA; stepdaughter, Tina Janice of North Barrington, IL; and stepson, Rick Janice (Edda) of Aurora, OH; and grandchildren in California and Ohio; and an adopted daughter, Patricia Moeller, in Hawaii. His last months were spent in the caring presence of LaVerne and Tina. A private remembrance will take place in Plumas County, CA in August. The memory of our father, husband, and friend will be with us always.
Posted in: Sacramento Bee
Posted on: 2018-07-09
Link to original obituary: https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sacbee/obituary.aspx?n=george-mccullough&pid=189494493