By Tracy Ouellette
SLN Staff
Family, friends and East Troy community members gathered at St. Paul’s Evangelical Church Monday to say goodbye to local World War II veteran Ernest Recknagel. “Ernie,” as he was called, died April 12 at the age of 94.
The husband, father and grandfather was a well-respected and much-loved resident of the area who inspired others on an almost daily basis according to family and friends.
“He just was a fine man who took care of his family and his county and his faith,” his son Mark Recknagel said.
“My dad was a wonderful, wonderful man and a great example for others to how to live one’s life,” his daughter Laurie Johnson added.
Ernest was born in LaGrange, and worked on the family farm before enlisting in the U.S. Army repairing airplanes.
Mark recounted one of the war stories his dad told over the years.
“Toward the end of the war they were doing some sort of experiment where they brought over a brand new gas tank from one plane and wanted to chop off an end of it make it fit into different plane,” Mark said. “When the technician went to take the end off with the torch, it blew up because of like paint fumes. Dad was thrown against wall and had his face smashed up. They did surgery on him right in barracks without any anesthesia – maybe a sip of liquor – and every day afterwards he had to run a wire up his nose to clear the passageway, again with no anesthesia. It was very painful, but he did it every day.”
After coming home from the war, Ernest married his fiancée Dorothy “Dot” Troeger in October of 1946.
They were married for almost 70 years and had two children.
“Mom’s doing okay,” Johnson said. “It’s been tough, they’ve been together so many years, but she’s doing all right.”
Mark said his father was “extremely” proud of his grandsons, Ryan, who has been in the U.S. Navy for about 12 years, and Matthew, who’s been a police officer for seven years.
“He just loved spending time with them,” Mark said.
Johnson said it was her father’s faith and commitment to family that defined him.
“He had such strong faith; he knew he was going to heaven and in his quiet way was happy to share God’s grace with others,” she said. “He loved his family, loved doing things with them, spending time with his grandsons as they grew and later got married so he then got granddaughters, too.”
She also spoke of his many years as an electrical design engineer with Trent Tube.
“He was well respected at his work at Trent Tube,” she recalled. “His designs and blueprints were known to be extremely exact and just perfect, they still talk about him, even in the new company.”
She said in recent years, as things got tough for her parents, she was very grateful her brother Mark was able to come to East Troy to live with their parents six days a week, going home to Madison on his seventh day when she would stay with them.
“Dad, and Mom too, were so appreciative of that,” she said. “It meant so much to them.”
Johnson said she and her husband often played the card game 500 with her parents and it was one of the memories she cherishes of her father.
“It was the men against the women and we kept track of who beat who,” she said. “We had so many laughs, it was so much fun.
“He was a father that any daughter would just love to have. I could give him a huge hug right now, I’m going to miss him terribly.”
Recknagel was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery following Monday’s services.
