Walter Bohn Sr., 81, was a volunteer and fisherman

Despite health issues that limited activities he could do by himself, Walter Bohn Sr. loved fishing at the New Jersey Shore – and pizza.

“We usually talked about pizza. Yes, pizza, to be honest with you,” said son Walter Jr. “He had a special place that he really liked for pizza, right in the area of the nursing home, and we used to have to get it for him.”

Mr. Bohn, 81, who moved to Chester County in his mid-50s to be closer to his son and grandsons, died Saturday, April 25, at Green Meadows Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Paoli from complications related to the coronavirus.

Mr. Bohn was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and moved to North Plainfield, N.J., where he lived for much of his life, and volunteered for a time with the North Plainfield Rescue Squad. His son said he had suffered from epilepsy all his life. One of his true enjoyments was going fishing at Manasquan, N.J.

“Because of the epilepsy and the meds and everything, we really didn’t go far,” his son said. “So it was just more to spend family time together. Once in a while, I’d take him to Manasquan, where his father had a house. He did love being down there.”

Mr. Bohn lived in Phoenixville and West Chester after moving from North Jersey in 1995. His son said his father had to enter a nursing home about eight years ago.

“He got to the point where he just couldn’t live independently anymore,” Walter Jr. said. “Our conversations were getting to be usually a couple of sentences and then meandered off. But he always talked about my mother," Patricia Fox, "even though they were divorced almost 40 years ago. The last time I saw him, he wanted me to put flowers on my mom’s grave.”

In addition to his son, Mr. Bohn is survived by a brother, a sister, and two grandsons.

— Joe Juliano, jjuliano@inquirer.com