Victor E. Cherven

Victor E. Cherven, of Bonners Ferry, Idaho, passed away unexpectedly on Monday May 27, 2013, at home. He would have been 95 next month. The family is planning a graveside service at the Cherven family plot in Holland, Mich.

Victor was born June 22, 1918, the eldest of four children born to Victor W. and Anna D. Cherven of Holland, Mich. He attended school in Holland, where he was active in both sports and music.

He formed Vie Cherven Jr.’s Chicago Cubs Juniors sandlot baseball team in 1928, which swept through the other sandlot teams in the area for several years. This was before the inception of organized Little League or school- sponsored baseball in Holland.

As a teenager, he learned to play the piano and comet and became fascinated with the Big Bands in the 1930s.

In 1934, he formed his own jazz band with the intention of becoming a professional dance band leader.

After graduating from Holland High, he enrolled in the music school at the University of Michigan, graduating with a bachelor of music degree in 1940.

While at the U of M, his interests turned to composing and conducting, and the university band and university symphony performed a number of his compositions.

Both his Lake Michigan Suite and Michigan Fanfare were later recorded. After graduation he began graduate studies at Yale University under the famed Paul Hindemith, one of the greatest American composers of the 20th Century. His education was interrupted by World War II when he was drafted into the US Army in 1941.

Initially assigned to artillery duty with the Arkansas National Guard at Fort Sill, Okla., he transferred to the Army Air Corps in 1942. After training as a celestial navigator, he was assigned to the Air Transport Command, where he served until the end of the war ferrying B-25’s, B-I7’s, and other aircraft to the African, Asian and European Theaters.

In August 1945, Cherven’s air crew Landed in Japan to prepare for Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s arrival and the subsequent American occupation. An article in the Holland Sentinel proclaimed him the first Holland man to set foot on Japanese soil.

After the war, he returned to Holland and worked briefly for the Holland Furnace Company, where his father had been an engineer. In 1947 he formed a partnership with a wartime buddy and the pair purchased the ABC Recreation bowling alley in Toledo, Ohio.

He soon met Mabel Louisa Martens, an avid bowler whose beautiful red hair caught his eye, and the two were married in 1948. The following year they had a son, Vie Jr.

In the early years of their marriage, Mr. Cherven also worked as a part-time brakeman for the New York Central Railroad in Toledo. In 1955, he left the bowling business and returned to music, and for the next eight years he taught instrumental music in several south Toledo public schools while earning a master’s degree in music education from the University of Michigan in 1959.

Two of his prized students, Dennis Russell Davies and Mary Linda Durrell, went on to the Julliard School to major in music performance and became professional musicians.

In 1963, Mr. Cherven moved his family to northern California and he continued his teaching career in the Oakland and Concord public school districts. One of his violin students matriculated at the Julliard School and later had a successful career with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra.

Mr. and Mrs. Cherven retired in 1986 and moved to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

There he devoted his time to golf, mountaineering, and model railroading. He and his son and several friends made more than 30 climbs in the High Sierras and in Yosemite Valley between 1967 and 2000. His last climb came at the age 82. With his son, he built a large model railroad in the basement.

Vie and Mabel were very close to their son and his wife Linda, and when the younger Chervens moved to northern Idaho in 2005, Vie and Mabel soon followed, despite being well into their 80s.

After Mabel passed away in 2006, Vie went to live with Vie Jr. and Linda and spent much of his last years building a large S scale model railroad that depicts the Southern Pacific Railroad’s routes in the San Francisco Bay Area and Central Valley.

In addition to his wife, Vie was preceded in death by sisters Anita Morrell Hoover of Plainwell, Mich., and Selma Michuda of Dyer, Ind. Along with his son and daughter-in-law, he is survived by sister Donna Gress and husband Chuck of Byron Center, Mich., and numerous nieces and nephews.

Family and friends are invited to sign Victor’s book at www.bonnersferryfuneralhome.com Arrangements are entrusted to the care of Bonners Ferry Funeral Home.