Raymond Michael Niedbalski Jr.

Raymond Michael Niedbalski, Jr was born in Newark, NJ on Feb. 11, 1947 to Raymond and Gertrude Niedbalski, Sr. Ray passed away on July 27th, 2022 surrounded by his family.

Ray lived his young life in Summit and New Providence, NJ. He graduated from New Providence High School in 1964 and immediately enlisted in the United States Air Force where he served four years. He always said he loved the Air Force but hated the military.

Ray was fortunate to obtain a job working for Hewlett Packard/Agilent Technologies in Rockaway, NJ until his retirement in 2000. He worked with many great people and developed lifelong relationships with them.

Ray and Karen (Wolfe) married in August 1972, and have been married for 50 years. They lived in Andover, NJ where they raised two incredible daughters, Jennifer, of Ashville, Ohio and Susan, of Erie, Colorado. After 34 years they moved to Circleville, Ohio to be closer to family.

Ray was an avid fisherman and enjoyed fishing the fresh water trout streams of NJ and telling of his fishing tales. His love of fishing grew to a love of building and repairing fishing rods. His specialty was split bamboo fly rods. Over the years he developed his own website for rods and equipment that he had collected, repaired and made himself. He enjoyed going to his workshop, listening to his bluegrass and country music and working on the rods.

Ray was lucky to have family, business associates and fellow fishermen among his list of people to enjoy life with and call friends. His most favorite people that have gone ahead of Ray include Dominic Scarillo formerly of Berkeley Heights, NJ, Sonny DeGraw formerly of Andover, NJ, Victor Quinto formerly of Chester, NJ, Gary Placko formerly of Allamuchy, NJ.

Ray is survived by his wife, Karen, his daughters and sons in law, Jennifer and Billy Dennis and Susan and Sam Irwin, and many family members. He was blessed to have 5 grandchildren, Kyle, Jacob, Steven, Jack, and Emily join him on his journey through life.

He holds a special place in his heart for his brother George, of Nevada and his Brother Carl Lantz, of NJ.

Through the generosity of another family, Ray was given an extra 13 years to live life. In honor of Ray, please consider making a donation to Lifeline of Ohio.

A celebration of life will be announced at a later date. Oliver-Cheek Funeral Home is assisting the family. Online condolences can be left at olivercheekfuneralhome.com

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