Theodore Speer Sr.; owned HVAC firm

After turning his heating and cooling business over to his two sons in 1993, Theodore J. Speer Sr. became a docent on the Battleship New Jersey in Camden.

And relying on cabinetmaking classes that he had taken in high school, he built a welcoming podium at the spot where visitors first set foot on the ship.

Mr. Speer was "very much into the Navy," said Joe Holland, a friend of 40 years and a former neighbor who, like Mr. Speer, a fellow Navy veteran, had never served on the battleship.

On Tuesday, May 10, Mr. Speer, 79, of Edgewater Park, former owner of Ted Speer & Sons there, died of Parkinson's disease at home. He died on the 58th anniversary of his wedding to his late wife, Ruth.

Theodore J. Speer Sr. spent the 1960s working for Acme Markets in Burlington County.

He began at the store in Maple Shade, became an assistant manager at the one in Burlington City, and then was produce manager for the one in Moorestown.

But his son, Ted Jr., said, "They were pressuring him to be a store manager, and he didn't want to do it."

So, in 1973, Mr. Speer set up his own service and installation business for heating and plumbing operations.

He grew up in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, graduated from Mastbaum High School, and served from 1956 to 1958 as a radar operator on a destroyer, assigned at times to the Mediterranean.

Mr. Speer's father had been an Acme manager, and so he began his career there while still in high school, stocking shelves for the firm.

And when he ran his own firm, daughter Cynthia Rovinsky said, it pretty much remained a three-man operation with his sons.

"He never wanted to grow the business," she said, "because he wanted the personalization" of a close-knit operation.

Holland, a retired bank vice president and an officer's clerk during his own land-based naval career, said Mr. Speer "instituted reunions" with his destroyer shipmates from across the nation.

And as a woodworker, Mr. Speer designed bedroom furniture for his grandchildren, Holland said.

Besides his sons and daughter, Mr. Speer is survived by daughter Kathryn Byrne, two sisters, six grandchildren, and a great-granddaughter. His wife, Ruth, died in 2013.

Life celebration viewings were set from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Friday, May 13, at the Inglesby Givnish Funeral Home, 600 E. Main St., Maple Shade, and from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Saturday, May 14, at the Mausoleum at Sunset Memorial Park, 333 County Line Rd., Feasterville, before a 10:30 a.m. service there.

Donations may be sent to the Battleship New Jersey Museum and Memorial, 62 Battleship Place, Camden, N.J. 08103-3302.

Condolences may be offered to the family at the funeral home's above address.

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