Lester “Popeye” Elliott Jr., 93, passed away at his Renfrew residence on Tuesday, May 16.

“Well, the year he was born, 1929, is when the cartoon character Popeye was also born,” his son, Lester III, said. “They named him Popeye because he’d always get into scraps and scrap around.”

While Lester eventually outgrew his scrapping ways, he never lost his fighting-spirit, according to his family.

“There was no lollygagging; there was no downtime. Some people refer to him as going 100 miles per hour,” said Lester III’s wife, April. “I mean, he was a force to be reckoned with in the workplace because he wanted to keep everybody happy, all the customers happy.”

Lester owned and operated Elliott Tire Service in Butler city for over 60 years, and, according to his wife, Antoinette, he was a committed family man with the heart of a cowboy.

Discussing Lester’s love of horseback-riding, Antoinette held up a photo of her husband at 82 years old participating in a Wyatt Earp Vendetta Ride in Tombstone, Ariz.

“Here he is in his Wyatt Earp outfit,” she said.

“In which he was actually buried in,” April added. “Martin (Funeral Home) said in all their years of business, they’ve never dressed somebody in such cool attire. Even down to the boots.”

Lester was born May 20, 1929, in Chicora.

“When he was 15, he went to work for Wayne Heist, who was his mentor, you might say, in working as a tireman,” Antoinette said. “Prior to that he had worked on farms driving teams — he always had a love of horses.”

In 1945, his brother, John, returned home from fighting in World War II.

Antoinette said the brothers had an uncle — Jim, whom they had never met — prospecting for gold in New Mexico.

“So his brother came home from the war, and I think he just needed to do something different, and he said, ‘Let’s go, let’s go find Uncle Jim,’” she said. “And so they built this little trailer and actually they made it to New Mexico.”

The younger Elliot said his father’s trip started with a hitch though.

“They first made it to New Castle, and blew a piston out of the motor, fixed it and made it to New Mexico,” his son said with a laugh.

Lester, John and their father, Lester Sr., successfully found Uncle Jim in an adventure that would shape the young man’s life.

“He’d never been anywhere; the furthest he’d ever been was probably Pittsburgh,” Antoinette said. “So off they go to New Mexico — that triggers his love of the Old West.”

That passion continued throughout his life. He was an ardent supporter of the Butler Farm Show and maintained a farm of his own.

“In 1976, he participated in the Bicentennial Wagon Train,” Antoinette said. “They drove across the state of Pennsylvania.”

Lester made the trip with his young son.

“And we retreaded those wagon wheels, put rubber on them,” Lester III said. “We went from here to Valley Forge — took a month.”

His son said they spent every night camping under the stars.

“Hundreds of wagons,” he said. “We would bathe in the creek, sleep under the wagons; they would have Chuck Wagons.”

In 1989, at 60 years old, Antoinette said they participated in Montana’s Centennial Cattle Drive from Roundup to Billings.

“It took a week,” Antoinette said. “He signed up for that, and he rode a horse for a week.”

In 2011, he discovered the Wyatt Earp Vendetta Ride in Tombstone, Ariz.

“So as soon as he heard about that, he wanted to go on it,” Antoinette said. “He was 82 years old — prior to that, the oldest person to ever have gone on it was 72 — so he’s an adventurous spirit.”

That spirit extended to all areas of Lester’s life, according to Antoinette.

“He always had to have a project, always,” she said. “He was not a man for sitting around.”

While working as a tireman with Heist in the mid 1900s, Lester’s career quickly began to climb.

“He apprenticed with Wayne and then the store was bought out by an independent dealer, and he became store manager in 1959,” Antoinette said.

Not long after, Lester decided to strike out on his own.

“He left Wayne and borrowed $5,000 to start his own business here,” Antoinette said.

In 1962, Lester partnered with Bandag and became one of the first shops in the nation to offer cold process retreading.

“It was invented by the Germans during World War II,” Lester III said. “And then … after World War II, they brought it to this country.”

The business immediately took off, according to Antoinette.

By 1967, Lester had purchased the shop’s current location on East Cunningham Street.

Dan Coleman, the present manager at the shop, said he had been working with Lester for 24 years.

“The biggest thing, we just didn’t hesitate on anything with him,” Coleman said with a laugh. “I mean, if a drain wasn’t running right, we’re going to get a concrete saw — right now.”

Coleman said he owes much of his work ethic to Lester.

“If someone needed help, he would just help — no matter what,” Antoinette said. “Even some of our employees, if someone needed help, he was always there.”

“Or even longtime customers who couldn’t pay on time or something, he always gave them grace,” April added. “His motto was always, ‘Customer service comes first.’”

Antoinette said Lester was a man that “you could always count on.”

“I went through cancer in the early ’90s,” she said. “He was just always there.”

In 2017, she said she broke her arm while they were visiting Canada.

“He got me back to Butler here so that I could have the surgery in Cranberry and took time off work to take me to physical therapy,” Antoinette said. “It’s just the type of man he was.”

April and Lester III both agreed that Lester “would never ask anybody to do something he wouldn’t do.”

Lester III said he began working with his father and continued working with him until March of this year.

“When I was 15, he took me up to the state police barracks to get my learner’s permit. We left there, and he said, ‘You’re driving to work,’” he said. “I started working with him every day, for 41 years.”

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