Charles R. Rossbach Sr.

Family will receive friends for visitation at Brown-Forward Funeral Home (17022 Chagrin Boulevard, Shaker Heights, Ohio 44120) on Friday, October 3, between 4:00pm-7:00pm.

Our family requests your presence at 9:45am on Saturday, October 4, 2025, for Chuck’s memorial service at Lake View Cemetery Community Mausoleum, Mayfield Entrance (12316 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44106, enter from the Mayfield and Kenilworth intersection). Interment to follow with full military honors. All are welcome and encouraged to attend.

It is our family’s great honor to invite you to Chuck Rossbach’s celebration of life on Saturday, October 4, 2025 from 1:00pm-4:00pm at Edwin’s Restaurant (12383 Cedar Rd, Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44106). All are welcome and encouraged to attend; lunch will be provided, with complimentary valet service and public parking available.

It was Chuck’s heartfelt wish that his memorial, military honors, and celebration of life be attended by all who knew him.

ALL ATTENDING GUESTS FOR SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4TH CELEBRATION OF LIFE AT EDWINS MUST RSVP BY MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29TH THROUGH THE LINK UNDER SERVICE SCHEDULE ON THIS WEBPAGE.

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Charles Ray "Chuck" Rossbach, Sr., 93, of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, passed away peacefully on the afternoon of September 23, 2025 in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, surrounded by his wife and children.

Chuck was born on February 27, 1932 at Saint Ann’s Maternity Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, to Ruth Nyfinger and Carl Rossbach. He was lovingly raised by Macil Bennett in the area of 86th & Hough Avenue. Chuck’s love of skating began in childhood, rolling down the sidewalks of his neighborhood with metal skates strapped to his shoes, encouraged by Macil to sharpen his skills. As a teenager, he played baseball for the Hawks with the Cleveland Baseball Federation in 1948, won the Cleveland Whirlo Skating Championship of 1950 on his roller skates, and ran on his high school’s track team. He achieved perfect attendance throughout all six years of junior and senior high school, and graduated from East High School in January of 1951. Illustrations done by Chuck himself adorn many pages of his senior yearbook.

Following his high school graduation, Chuck joined the United States Air Force and served in the Korean War from 1952 to 1956 as a cryptographer with top secret clearance, stationed in Nagoya and Tokyo, Japan. He achieved the rank of Airman First Class. He was a true patriot throughout his life, and loved his country with deep pride for the nation he served. During his service, he also enjoyed immersing himself in Japanese culture, and despite the events at the time, he formed lifelong bonds with local individuals, relationships that transcended oceans for decades to follow. While overseas, Chuck took his love for skating on roller rinks to the ice. Still new to ice skating, he practiced in his free time and quickly distinguished himself, earning first- and second-place finishes in two local skating competitions.

Chuck would meet Claire Kelly after returning to the United States, while she was working at the snack bar at a local roller rink, and they soon fell in love. They were married on August 3, 1957, and their life of adventure together began on their honeymoon to Lake Placid. They loved strolling Euclid Beach Park hand-in-hand, sharing an ice cream cone beneath the carnival lights. The married couple, both having formally traded their roller skates for ice skates, went on to win silver medals as a pair at the Midwestern Figure Skating Championships in 1959 and 1960. They would bring three children into the world over the next decade — Kelly, Chip, and Rob — to whom they would pass on their love of the ice. Chuck loved his family tremendously, and did everything he could to make their childhoods memorable; from tandem bike rides, to road-trips across the country, to good old-fashioned time spent together on holidays, he was a family man and an outstanding father. He taught them the importance of hard work and perseverance, to live humbly and happily, and perhaps his most important lesson: to be a kind person and treat everyone equally and with respect. He would welcome five grandchildren — all boys — in the 1990s and 2000, and would attend his grandsons’ hockey games as often as he could. Chuck loved traveling and experiencing new places and cultures. Spanning over two decades of his later adult years, he and Claire would traverse the United States together in their motorhome. They would travel to places both new and familiar, but were enchanted by New Mexico’s Ghost Ranch perhaps most of all. Chuck and Claire called themselves “Road Scholars,” and their adventures were guided by the history of America’s Great Westward Migration in 1846, taking inspiration from the California and Santa Fe Trails as they charted their own path across the country. In the summer of 1973, Chuck, accompanied by Claire, led ten of his Cleveland skating students on a memorable trip to Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland. Beyond the time spent on the ice, the group explored the surrounding culture and landscapes, traveling into France and Italy to hike, visit art museums, and experience local ice rinks together.

After working as a design draftsman for Cleveland Graphite Bronze in the late 1950s, and teaching drafting at John Adams High School in the 1960s, Chuck shifted his career path to follow his true passion. After all, he always said, “the only thing constant is change.” Chuck began coaching figure and freestyle ice skating in 1963, and over the course of his 60+ year career, he would teach and instruct thousands of students, many of which he would remain close with, and their families. He earned the rating of Master Coach from the Professional Skaters Association in figure and freestyle skating, and was appointed Skating Director for the city of Shaker Heights from 1973 to 1993. In 2014, the atrium of Thornton Park Ice Rink was named in his honor, where a plaque and bust of his likeness are displayed. The Chuck Rossbach Learn to Skate Competition is held there; the 21st annual event having taken place in December of 2024. His love of the rink and enthusiasm to instruct transcended his students’ generational, financial, and socioeconomic backgrounds. He believed he could teach anyone to skate — and gift them with the love of the art form. All three of Chuck’s children grew up on the ice, with two of them pursuing it professionally, continuing his legacy in their own communities.

Chuck was not only loyal to his family, but to his Cleveland sports teams. He loved the Indians, securing seats at nearly every single home opener at Jacob’s Field since 1994, and watching the Browns games on TV. He also had a deep appreciation for Volkswagen Microbuses and Beetles (“Bug-Bugs”), becoming a member of the VW Club of America after purchasing his first, a red 1956 Convertible. The Lawrence Welk show was just one of the classic television shows he liked to watch, drawn in by its nostalgic charm, champagne music, and that signature bubble pop. Chuck enjoyed attending the Geauga County Fair, if not only for the Demolition Derby but for the sweet treats he could find there. He loved to decorate for holidays, and, notably, Christmas and Halloween would mean elaborately decorating the front lawn. At 90 years old, Chuck would join a gym — an inspiring testament to his perseverance — where he worked on his physical and functional strength several days a week, continuing until just weeks before his passing.

Chuck embodied the true meaning of being both a gentleman and a “gentle man.” He was a member of the Mentor Presbyterian Church, and was deeply devoted to his faith. He would recite his daily devotionals and The Lord’s Prayer every single day. To know Chuck was to love Chuck, and his laughter, smile, his guidance, and his gentle spirit will remain forever in the hearts of those who loved him.

Chuck is survived by his beloved wife Margaret "Claire" (nee Kelly); daughter Kelly Ann Adam (Michael), sons Charles R. Jr. "Chip" (Michelle Mangano) and Robert D. “Rob” (Alana); dear grandchildren Beau (Caitlin), Skyler, Charles R. III "Trey", Austin Adam (Autumn), and Tyler Adam; and great-granddaughter Ellie Ann Rossbach, due December 2025; siblings Donald Schuh, Deborah Lohman (Thomas); and many nieces and nephews.

He is preceded in death by his parents, Carl Rossbach and Ruth Nyfinger; Macil Bennett; and his sister, Joanne Schuh.