Saper

Mike “Rock” Saper, originally of Lyndora, died peacefully Tuesday from heart complications. He passed away surrounded by family in the home he shared with his son and daughter-in-law in West Sunbury. He was 91 years old.

He was born Feb. 24, 1921, and was the last surviving child of Stefan and Mary Wasko Saper/Sapar.

Mike spent his formative years in the Great Depression and amid the turmoil of World War II. In 1939, he worked on his family's behalf as a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) near Williams, Ariz., and shortly afterward he volunteered for the U.S. Army.

Assigned to the 394th Regiment of the 99th Infantry Division (a.k.a. the “Battle Babies” or “Checkerboard Division”), Mike served as a medic in the European theater in the months following the D-Day invasion. His service extended through major battles protecting Allied supply lines and leading to the conclusion of the war, including the frigid and bloody 1944 Battle of the Bulge.

Before being deployed, Mike married Florence Ritzert, originally of Chicora, in Paris, Texas, in 1942. They had their first child in 1947 after he returned to Lyndora, and together they raised a family of five children through the personal and economic challenges of the following decades.

“Champ,” as his fellow steelworkers knew Mike, retired from ARMCO Steel, now AK Steel, in 1984 after many years of sweat and toil.

Mike was a member of the American Legion Post 778.

Though he was a hard worker who lived through trying times, Mike possessed a romantic spirit, a love of sports and an unassuming zeal for life. As a young man, he was a notable baseball player with the Butler Yankees who had starry eyes for the Major Leagues. In the Army he became a champion boxer and acquired his favorite nickname, “Rock.”

Throughout his retirement, he could be found practicing his golf swing and dreaming of a spot on the PGA Tour. To his children and grandchildren, he imparted an appreciation of the outdoors and a legacy of camping, hunting and fishing. If he could have lived during another time, he might have been a cowboy on the open range, a life he often entered vicariously through Western movies.

In 2009, when Mike revisited the picturesque mountain meadow of his CCC encampment in Arizona, he breathed deeply, beamed and said, “I feel like a young man again,” an apt testament to his enduring youthfulness and love of natural beauty.

The sacrifices he made for family and country will not be forgotten. His photogenic smile, affinity for boyish mischief and idiosyncratic ways of hoarding bananas and candies in his car will continue to bring laughter to all those who knew him. After a long and full earthly life, he has gone with simple faith into his eternal reward. In the words of the Byzantine Catholic tradition he practiced, may he be granted blessed repose and eternal memory.

Mike is survived by four children, Linda Saper of Oldsmar, Fla., Michael S. Saper and his wife, Tanya, of North Washington, Robert D. Saper and his wife, Deborah, of West Sunbury and Beverly Jones and her husband, Charles, of Brookville; eight grandchildren, David Bordonaro, Chad Bordonaro, Melissa Bordonaro, Joshua Schmidt, Eric Jones, Robert M. Saper and his wife, Christina Smith, Joni Saper and Michael S. Saper Jr.; and one great-grandchild, Michael Bordonaro.

He was preceded in death by his wife, Florence (Ritzert) Saper, who died in 1984; his son, John Saper, who died in 1989; and eight siblings, John Sapar, Nicholas Sapar, Steven Saper, Andrew Saper, Samuel Sapar, Anne Berris, and Steve and Sam Sapar, who died in their youth.

SAPER — Mike “Rock” Saper died Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2012. Calling hours for Mike will be from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the William F. Young Funeral Home, 132 Main St., West Sunbury, where a prayer service will be at 7:30 p.m.A funeral liturgy will be celebrated at 11 a.m. Friday at the St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Church in Lyndora, followed by the interment of Mike's remains alongside his wife and son at Rose Hill Cemetery in Butler. He will be given military honors.Following services, Mike's life will be celebrated during a dinner prepared by the Women's Guild at the St. John's Parish Hall.