Raymond Randolph Cahow

Raymond Randolph Cahow “Ray”, passed away at home suddenly on April 30 th, 2026 at the age of 100 from natural causes.

He was born on the family farm April 20,1926 in rural Reeve, Wisconsin to parents Syneva (Hagen) and William “Clifford” Cahow. Raymond was the middle child of 9 born, 8 boys and 1 girl who died shortly after birth. His mother Syneva is of Norwegian descent and his father Clifford is of Norwegian/ Scott/Irish descent. Syneva’s family immigrated from Norway to North Dakota in 1879. Clifford’s father died when he was 6 years old leaving his mother and the 6 children destitute. Clifford had to go live with farmers to earn his own keep. Syneva and Clifford met on a 2,000-acre co-op farm in North Dakota where she was head cook to 500 farmhands, and he was “Doc” to 40 teams of mules. They married and purchased some land in rural Reeve Wisconsin and traveled by covered wagon to reach their destination where they cleared and settled the land for dairy farming. Their first house was a two-room tar paper shack with no running water or indoor plumbing. Eight of the children were born there. Raymond’s parents were true pioneers.

Raymond grew up on that dairy farm. The eight boys worked on the farm and the family’s milk route seven days a week from 4:30 am to 7 pm. The family worked hard to survive during the great depression by growing and hunting most of their food, wearing hand me down clothes, and using flour sacks to make sheets. Life was good but very simple. In 1926 they got electricity and their first truck, a Ford Model T, was purchased the day Raymond was born. While a young man, Raymond hunted and ate fish, squirrels, partridges, ducks, and deer. Winters were harsh with deep snow and temperatures well below 0 degrees. Summers came with severe storms and tornados. Ray remembers diving in a ditch and holding on for dear life while a tornado went past. Another time he sought shelter under a large tree during a severe thunderstorm when the tree got struck by lightning and he was knocked unconscious. When Ray was a teenager, his father built a simple 2 story house for the family. The house was heated by a pot belly stove and in the winter buckets of water froze solid overnight, and you slept in 3-4 layers of clothes under buffalo hide blankets. Being so tall, he had to stick his legs between the spindles of the brass bed footboard. Once the house was struck by lightning which shot across the room and hit the bed he was sleeping in but since he wasn’t touching any of the bed frame he didn’t get hurt. He attended a two-room school house where they still used quills and ink to write with. Ray dropped out of high school at age 14 to drive a milk route for his father’s company. Ray remembers how much work the milk route was … 7 days a week, rain, snow or sunshine, the milk had to be picked up. When the snow was too deep for the truck he picked up the milk with horses and a sled. You had to drive to each farm on the route, walk down to collect the full milk cans weighing about 110 pounds each, hoist 1 can onto each shoulder, carry them back and load them in the truck. Once the truck was full of cans, he delivered the milk to the dairy where he had to unload all the cans for processing, load clean replacement cans, and then continued on his route. Ray estimates that he himself handled approximately 3.5 - 4 tons (7,000 - 8,000 lbs.) of weight each day. Like all his brothers, he was very tall and thin, but hard as nails. The going rate of pay for a man was $1.00 a day but Ray did not receive any pay for his work. His father would give him money on special occasions like when a World War I barnstorming flying ace came to town, he gave Ray $1.00 so that he could have a ride in the World War 1 bi-plane.

Ray has many happy memories of growing up on the farm with his brothers …. swimming in the local swimming hole, swinging through the trees like monkeys, using the maple syrup troughs as boats to sail down the creek and as sleds in the winter. He recalls his mother’s simple but delicious cooking, her homemade bread but especially her cinnamon rolls, pies and cakes, as the brothers would literally fight over them. As the boys got older, sometimes their dad would let them take the truck or horses and wagon to go to town for a movie or dance. Hamburgers were 5 cents and a movie was 10 cents back in the day. Favorite pets included his pet crow Jake that sat on his shoulder and went everywhere with him, and a ground hog named Chuck. Chuck loved to ride in the car and go to town where he would sit on a stool in the pharmacy and eat an ice cream cone.

Just before his 18 th birthday in 1944 he enlisted in the Navy to serve his country in WWII. As Navy Seaman 1 st Class he served 2 years traveling the South Pacific. Raymond was one of 4 brothers who served in WWII with the eldest brother Robert being killed in action in Germany just before the Battle of the Bulge. He trained to be a fire fighter on ships. Firing everything from a 20-millimeter gun to a 538 cannon, Raymond served on several ships including the S.S. Barney Kirschbaum a Liberty Ship, and the S.S. Apache Canyon a National Defense Tanker. He saw native indigenous people (head hunters) in Borneo and swam in the local seas with a knife between his teeth in case the sharks attacked. While he did not participate in active fighting, one ship he was on barely evaded a direct hit by Japanese torpedo only because he spotted the torpedo while on watch and ordered the bridge to take evasive maneuvers. He witnessed heavy shelling in the battle of Leyte in the Philippines with cannon shells whizzing just past his head that made his hair stand on end. Once his ship passed directly through a severe hurricane where he was tied to the deck railing during his watch and 70-foot waves swamped the ship and you had to hold your breath until the wave passed. Fortunately, his ship did not sink but the ship next to them broke in half and sunk. Ray found the action exhilarating rather than frightening. During his naval service, he passed through the Panama Canal by ship 9 times. While visiting an island he wanted to capture a monkey and tracked it through the jungle. The monkey had other ideas about that arrangement and bit him in the back and thigh several times leaving him with multiple scars. He also had an encounter with an octopus that he accidently stepped on in the surf and it wrapped itself around his leg. Having boxed in the Navy he had the opportunity to spar with the world heavy weight champion and was always proud of his powerful left hook. After WWII ended, Raymond finished his high school education and took some business classes.

After his service in the Navy, he moved to Minneapolis where for a time he worked on the assembly line building Ford Motor cars but decided that was not for him. He finally figured out that his true talents lie in being a salesman no matter what the product was. Ray has always been a self-made man from humble beginnings who was self-taught and unafraid to try anything. For good and bad, he had been a student of “the school of hard knocks”. His childhood and service in WWII equipped him with many skills, experiences and interests that carried him all through his life. He often spoke about the secret to his success was that after every sales call he would sit on the curb and analyze how the call went and what he could do better which helped him to grow in ability and self-confidence. He said “sell the sizzle not the steak” and believed that you had to show the customer that you were the expert. Early careers have included being a top salesman for Studebaker cars, freezer food plan & vacuum salesman, encyclopedia salesman, and Arthur Murray’s dance instructor.

In 1954, he met Guri Myreng at the Prom Ballroom, a recent 18-year-old immigrant from Norway and fell in love. They married in 1955 and soon moved to Philadelphia, PA where their daughter and only child Linda was born. Soon career opportunities for Ray led them to settle in the Maryland DC Metro area. Ray started work at Fuller & D’Albert Photographic Equipment Company as a salesman but soon became general manager and one of the top men in the world in photographic equipment sales & installation.

Changing career paths never scared him. In the 1970’s when the entrepreneurial spirit hit, he opened Norseman Custom Tailoring & Dry-Cleaning business with his wife Guri. Guri and Ray later divorced and by the mid 1970’s, he closed Norseman and started his own asphalt paving company called Contractor Services. Not knowing much about the asphalt business, Buster Day of FO Day Asphalt mentored Ray and helped him learn the industry. As opportunities grew, in 1983 he co-founded with his daughter Linda a new company called ASPHALT GENERAL that specialized in asphalt and concrete services. Retiring from Asphalt General in 2024, Ray had worked for over 50 years in the asphalt industry, a field that he loved very much. He loved the challenges of selling a job, problem solving, and engineering that come with this industry.

Raymond enjoyed a close relationship with his daughter Linda and enjoyed visits from granddaughter Lara and grandchildren Sofiah and Raiden. Because he was in sales most of his life, Ray was very proud of the fact that he has driven over 4 million miles in his lifetime. He stopped driving at age 98. In 1959 Raymond joined the Sons of Norway Washington DC Lodge. He has many fond memories of parties, dances, bazaar events and enjoying the friendship of other Norwegians for 67 years. Ray has traveled to Norway with family and then later in life to Germany and France twice to participate in the D-Day invasion ceremonies and visit where his brother Robert was killed in Germany during WWII. A proud patriot, Raymond is a lifetime member of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars. His youngest brother Doug and his wife Virginia have been key leaders and volunteers in building 2 veterans memorials in Wisconsin, one in located in Clear Lake and one in Reave. Raymond has been an avid supporter of both memorials through the years.

Up until his death at 100 years old, Raymond lived independently in Beltsville. With a vest for life, he never tired of learning new things every day. As an avid reader, he enjoyed history, military history, politics, nature/fishing/hunting magazines, and action and western TV shows and movies. Ray found enlightenment and adventure within the countless books and magazines that he read with each article or story being food for his inquisitive mind. He took great pride in mentoring several contractors in the asphalt industry. Work aside, being on a boat out on the water exploring, and being outside in nature were his true loves. Being around people and telling stories about his life and experiences was always a good time for him, and along with dreaming about a great cross country RV road trip and buying another boat. He was still planning new and interesting experiences.

Raymond is survived by his daughter Linda Cahow, granddaughter Lara Cahow and partner Cory Russell, grandchildren Sofian and Raiden. He is also survived by his brother Doug Cahow and wife Virginia, sisters-in-law Judy Cahow and Marcelene Cahow, and his many nieces and nephews. He is pre-deceased by his parents Clifford Cahow and Syneva (Hagen), brothers Robert, Gordon, William, Donald, Adam and Tobias, and sister Pearl along with ex-wife Guri Ladestro.

A Memorial Service will be held on Saturday May 16 th , 2026 with Visitation 11:00 -12:00 and Memorial Service 12:00 – 1:00 to be held at: Borgwardt Funeral Home, 4400 Powder Mill Rd., Beltsville MD 20705

Lunch will be held directly after the Memorial Service at: Holiday Inn College Park Hotel 10000 Baltimore Blvd. (Rte. 1) College Park, MD 20740

In lieu of flowers the family requests donations to the charities listed herein.

Clear Lake Veterans’ Memorial, Inc. Tax Deductible Donation Ray was a major sponsor of the Memorial and is listed on Your donation is 100% tax deductible. one of the 5 marble monuments for his service in WWII. 

https://clear-lake-veterans-memorial.square.site

Mail Checks to: Clear Lake Veterans’ Memorial, Inc. PO Box 450 Clear Lake, WI 54005

OR

Wounded Warrior Project – Your donation is 100% tax deductible. https://support.woundedwarriorproject.or

Final inurnment will be in Clear Lake Cemetery in Clear Lake, Wisconsin.

The family wishes to thank all friends and caregivers for their help, support and care. It is deeply appreciated.