WESTERLO — Rev. Robert Martin Duchow, a retired Lutheran pastor, local historian, and fifth-generation resident of the family home in Westerlo, died on Friday, June 11, 2021, in Farmington, Conn., where he had lived with his son and daughter-in-law for the last four years. He was 84.

Rev. Duchow was born Sept. 9, 1936, in Hudson, New York, the oldest child of Rev. Martin and Julia Anderson Duchow. He grew up in Colonie and West Hartford, Connecticut. He graduated from West Hartford’s William H. Hall High School in 1953, and received an associate degree from Concordia Junior College in Bronxville, New York, in 1955. In 1960, he earned his bachelor of divinity degree from Concordia Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, and was ordained as a pastor in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

During his 1958-59 vicarage at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Lansing, Illinois, Rev. Duchow met Bonnie Ruth Reister, a teacher at St. John’s Lutheran School. On July 9, 1960, they married in Mrs. Duchow’s hometown of Grandville, Michigan.

“Their marriage was 13 years to the day after Bob bought his first bicycle,” Rev. Duchow’s family wrote in a tribute. “Bonnie died Aug. 9, 2017; the bike survives.”

Rev. Duchow served pastoral calls to: Redeemer Lutheran Church in Youngstown, Ohio (1960-65); Peace Lutheran Church in Chardon, Ohio (1965-68); Immanuel Lutheran Church in Manchester, New Hampshire (1968-1980); and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Saratoga Springs, New York (1980-88). He also served Trinity Lutheran Church in Stamford, New York (1990-2002) and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Hurley, New York (2003-10).

During his pastoral career, Rev. Duchow served on several boards and committees of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s Central, Ohio, Atlantic, and New England districts, including as the first Board of Youth Chairman in both the Ohio and New England districts when they were formed in 1963 and 1972, respectively. He was also on the first Ohio District Board of Directors, and was offered but declined the New England District presidency during the synod’s political upheaval in 1976.

Rev. Duchow also worked as a telecommunications relay operator for AT&T (1991-97) and for the United States Census Bureau during the 1990 and 2000 censuses.

“As a teenager, Bob rode his cherished 1947 two-speed Western Flyer bicycle to deliver more than 100 newspapers daily for the Hartford Times, earning a $3,000 Frank Gannett Newspaperboy Scholarship, which paid for his first two-plus years of college,” his family wrote. “Bob often visited his grandparents in Westerlo, where his grandfather, Gilbert Anderson, was a storekeeper and postmaster. These experiences engrained a lifelong love for the community and their home, which he and Bonnie moved into full time in 1996.

“Bob was active in the Westerlo Historical Society throughout the 1990s and 2000s, serving multiple terms as president, and was the Westerlo Town Historian for several years. He also served on the board of the Helderberg Christian School, and the Westerlo Senior Center, and delivered Meals on Wheels for several years.

“For much of the last 50 years, passersby in the village might see Bob painting the house, mowing the lawn, clipping the spirea bushes, throwing kerosene on a backyard bonfire, offering rhubarb to anyone who would take it, taking his daily walk to the post office, and in later years, riding his cherished 1947 two-speed Western Flyer around the village.

“He enjoyed researching his genealogy, and traced the family back 12 generations in America. Bob loved to worship his Lord Jesus, and the hymns and history of the Lutheran Church. He was an avid lifelong fan of the Boston Red Sox and Hartford Chiefs baseball teams.”

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Rev. Robert Martin Duchow is survived by three sons, Martin C. Duchow and Deborah Taylor of Unionville, Connecticut, Frederick G. and Michelle Duchow of Garland, Texas, and Robert A. and Emily Duchow of Bakersfield, Calif.; two brothers, Gilbert and Linda Duchow of Muskego, Wisconsin, and Marvin and Darlene Duchow of Chemainus, British Columbia; a sister, Carol and Joel Gurin of Silver Spring, Maryland.; seven grandchildren, Shelby (Paul) Giokas, Zachary (Jacque), Elizabeth, Christian, Catherine, Gabriel and Ella; and a great-grandson, Andrew Robert Giokas.

His brother, Paul Duchow, died in 2017.

Funeral services will be at 1 p.m. on Monday, July 12, at Resurrection Lutheran Church at 186 Main St. in Cairo, New York. Calling hours will be from 3 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, July 11, at A.J. Cunningham Funeral Home at 4898 State Route 81 in Greenville. Burial will be in the family plot at Westerlo Rural Cemetery.

Memorial messages may be left at www.altamontenterprise.com/milestones.

Memorial donations may be made to Resurrection Lutheran Church, Post Office Box 563, Cairo, N.Y. 12413, or to Westerlo Public Library, Post Office Box 267, Westerlo, N.Y. 12193.