Leon Ray Foiles

Leon Ray (Pete) Foiles Pete Foiles passed away August 4, 2024, at the age of 94 after a short stay at Sunrise Leawood Assisted Living in Leawood, Kansas. He had a long and eventful life. He was born November 14, 1929, in Kampsville, Illinois (pop. 350), two blocks from the Illinois River ferry. He was the fifth of seven children born to William Lee and Mary Mima (Puterbaugh) Foiles. During the early part of the Great Depression, his family had to leave their farm when the bank foreclosed on the land that had been given to them by his Grandfather George Albert Foiles.

 William Lee worked many jobs to support his family and was eventually employed on several of the locks along the Illinois River and moved his family six times to small towns along the river. Pete entered first grade in Kampsville School, continuing his elementary education in one-room schoolhouses wherever they lived, and in September 1943 enrolled as a freshman at Versailles Illinois High School.

 In 1944, Pete’s father was transferred to the Peoria Area Corps of Engineers Lock on the Illinois River to work as its lock master, and Pete enrolled for his sophomore year at Woodruff High School in Peoria, Illinois. Intimidated by the large school, he dropped out and took a job at Maple City Stamping Company as a punch press operator, where he severely injured his left hand in the machinery. He returned to Woodruff in the fall of 1945, while working various part-time jobs; finishing four years of high school in May 1948, but did not graduate for lack of a half-credit in English, which was his personal nemesis, along with spelling. 

Pete enlisted in the United States Air Force in August 1948 and after thirteen weeks of basic training was assigned to Carswell AFB in Fort Worth, Texas. He served there and at several other air force bases including Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona until his honorable discharge in August 1954 at the rank of Technical Sergeant. Pete was part of the Strategic Air Command during the Korean War, working as a navigation and bombing system technician on B-36 and B-47 bombers. 

It  was in August 1951, during a visit home to Peoria, that Pete met Margaret Zerbonia, a dark-haired beauty from Peoria who worked at Caterpillar Tractor. It was a chance meeting because Margaret had earlier tried to get out of attending the party, but her girlfriends insisted. Pete got accustomed with driving from Fort Worth to Peoria and back for dates. They married five months later, on December 29, 1951, and Margaret became a U.S. Air Force wife and Pete’s favorite person. They had four children and lived in Fort Worth, Texas; Tucson, Arizona; Streator, Illinois; Peoria, Illinois; Lynchburg, Virginia, finally moving to Overland Park, Kansas in 1969. They were a passionate, loving couple dedicated to each other for 67 years until Margaret’s death at age 90 on September 23, 2018. 

As a telecommunications specialist with radar and radio training, Pete had many opportunities for work and advancement. He continued to learn all he could to keep up with evolving technologies and boost his career. He obtained his GED from Woodruff HS in 1955, attended evening classes in engineering at Tulane University, Texas Christian University, and Bradley University and continued specialized training throughout his career. He worked for Illinois Bell Telephone Company, RCA Service Company, Federal Electric Corporation, Page Communications Engineers, Inc., General Electric Company, Philco-Ford Corporation, Giddings Company, ITT Telecommunications Corporation, Granger, DSC Communications, and Telco Systems. Pete’s performance reviews and promotions display a man who was considered a knowledgeable and valuable employee. 

During his career, Pete was assigned as a civilian contractor for classified U.S. Air Force projects at the Aircraft Control & Warning Squadron in Hanna City, Illinois; the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line Training Center in Streator, Illinois; the DEW Line Site on Baffin Island, Canada; the Imperial Iranian Air Force in Tehran, Iran; and with our European allies in West Germany, and Norway. Some of these assignments required secret security clearance and took him away from family for extended periods of time like the DEW Line project for a year and the Tehran assignment for six months.

 In 1994, Pete retired from Telco Systems and he and Margaret traveled to Hawaii, Alaska, Canada, Great Britain, Italy and visited many places, friends, and relatives throughout the United States. Pete was a well-liked and admirable man with a strong sense of fairness and decency who told entertaining and humorous stories. His family and friends enjoyed his descriptions of growing up and living in rural Illinois with his brothers, sisters, and family during the 1930’s and 40’s as well as stories about his amazing years in the United States Air Force and as a telecommunications specialist in the fast expanding telecommunications industry of the 1950’s and 60’s.

 Pete could fix, repair, improve, build, and work on anything. To his family he was always the smartest man in the room. His ability to create and build his own tools, when one didn’t exist, put him in a rare category. He was the fix-it guy in the family, and taught his children how to repair cars, houses, and furniture, too. Pete’s interests were related to his natural athletic abilities and his love for all things mechanical that could go fast; snow and water skiing, ice skating, wind surfing, flying his Aeronca Champion airplane, restoring cars, riding on his BMW motorcycle, camping, bicycling, tennis and driving his red Chrysler Marine boat. He made sure that his family joined in these activities with him including hiking the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, snow skiing at Winter Park, Colorado, and the 50-year family tradition of boating and water skiing at Beaver Lake, Arkansas each summer.

 Pete is preceded in death by his wife Margaret, his parents, brothers Ernest, Forrest, and Donald and sisters Eileen, Cleo, and Trula. He is survived by his children, daughter, Theresa O’Malley, and three sons, Frank Foiles (Leslie), Ralph Foiles (Carol), George Foiles (Michelle), and nine grandchildren, Mike O’Malley, Kenzie O’Malley (Mark), Jake Foiles (Amanda), Dan Foiles (Molly), Jon Foiles (Cassie), Luke Foiles (Rachel), Jenna Foiles, Lyndy Foiles, Thomas Foiles and three great-grandchildren Riley Foiles, Eli Foiles, and Macy Foiles. He is also survived by many nieces and nephews from both the Foiles and the Zerbonia families. He will be missed.

 Since Pete Foiles outlived most friends and extended family, his family will gather for a private dinner to share stories and memories of Pete. His and Margaret’s ashes will be interred together at a cemetery in Overland Park, KS. Donations can be made in Pete’s name to the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America at Donating (myasthenia.org).