Charles Lough, 92, found life was best explored on wheels
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Born in 1909, just a year after Ford's Model T revolutionized the automobile world, Charles Howard "Charlie" Lough was a car man from the get-go. His free-spirited, energetic 92-year lifetime spanned the years from tin lizzies to SUVs.
For a while in the 1930s, he took a shine to airplanes, getting a pilot's license and courting his bride-to-be, Ruth Burris, from the open cockpit of a biplane as he buzzed her Madrona home.
But for Mr. Lough, who died Feb. 12 of complications of pneumonia, the motorcar was the most frequent icon of his personal and working life.
While a student at Garfield High School in Seattle, he delivered groceries in a Model T. Before his 21st birthday, he and his older brother, Curtis, opened the Roar with Gilmore gas station on 31st Avenue South. When wartime gas rationing shut them down, Mr. Lough drove a taxi for Farwest Cab.
He got his real start in the business world with earnings reaped from stock in Willys-Overland, the parent company of Jeep.
In 1947, he opened the Lough Motors dealership on Rainier Avenue South, selling Jeeps, GMC trucks and Hudson cars.
Mr. Lough always looked ahead, figuring out what customers might want next, said his son, Steven. In the early years, televisions and refrigerators shared showroom space with cars, said his son, who, like others in the family, worked in the dealership.
Early on, Mr. Lough recognized the potential in recreational vehicles and began selling Chinook and Security campers and canopies in the 1960s and '70s. And when his son got excited about electric cars in 1980, Mr. Lough hopped aboard, selling electric cars along with the internal-combustion kind despite taking a loss on the venture.
In business, Mr. Lough was honest and shrewd, Steven Lough said. To his employees, he was generous, fair and kind. He stuck with a union shop, "even though other dealers went the other way for corporate profitability," his son said. "We stuck with the union through thick and thin."
In return, his employees stuck by him. Each year Lough Motors was successful, the profit was divided up among all the employees.
Having parties and traveling were among the things the Loughs loved best. They held elaborate parties, often inviting guests to bring a tent and set it up in the yard for weekend-long festivities.
Wed when Ruth Burris was 15 and Mr. Lough 21, the two kept their marriage secret and continued to live with their parents. A year later, they confessed and spent their first night together, their son said.
The two were partners both in fun and in business. In the 1930s, Steven Lough recalled, their modus operandi went like this: "When they were going out on the town, Mom would come down to the station in her finest Saturday-night dress, slip on a pair of overalls and pump gas while Charlie went home, cleaned up and came back. And then they went out for the evening."
In their later years, the Loughs traveled a great deal, visiting Mexico, Europe and Australia, among other places.
Once, in 1959, they decided to bring "a complete Seattle Christmas" to friends in Mexico. And so we did — a Christmas tree stuffed in a hard cardboard tube, an electric train for the kids, a turkey, Christmas lights and all the trimmings," Steven Lough recalled.
In 1992, after 60 years of marriage, Ruth Lough died, and Mr. Lough suffered a stroke. But that didn't stop his travels, his son said. "He was in a wheelchair with one good leg, one good arm and his sense of humor," he said.
In 1993, at 85, Mr. Lough sold the dealership to Frederick Pontiac-Buick of Seattle.
Less than two weeks before he died, he was gambling enthusiastically at a local casino, his son said.
"He turned $5 into $300 and turned to his caregiver and said, 'Boy, this makes me feel like I'm alive again, like I'm doing business, making money like I used to.' "
In addition to his son, Mr. Lough is survived by a daughter, Christina Iranon of Auburn, and three grandchildren. The family suggests remembrances to the Salvation Army, P.O. Box 9219, Seattle, WA 98109.