Anthony Richard Weiler

Anthony Richard Weiler

Iowa City

Anthony Richard Weiler, 88, died Nov. 7, 2024, in Chicago.

Born May 30, 1936, in Erie, Pa., he was the son of Ruth and Ad Weiler. On Aug. 5, 1962, he married Phyllis Kay Fergel.

After graduating from the University of Michigan in 1959, he took a job with Chittenden & Eastman Co. in Burlington, Iowa, unloading train boxcars of furniture. He then became a salesman in a territory that included central Kansas. Tony and Kay met on a blind date in Hutchinson, Kan., on Halloween 1961.

In 1965, Tony was promoted to a job that brought him to C&E’s home office in Burlington, where he worked his way up to sales manager, vice president and CEO. He left the company and Burlington in 1995 to be senior vice president of merchandising at Heilig-Meyers at its Richmond, Va., headquarters. In 2000, he established an independent consulting practice that took him all over the country and overseas, advising U.S. and international furniture manufacturing firms and wholesalers. He continued traveling and working in the industry until 2016, closing a 57-year career. In 2012, after several years living in White Stone, Va., Tony and Kay moved to Iowa City, Iowa, where they lived until moving to Chicago in September 2024.

Tony loved travel, from family road trips — which inevitably included en route stops at C&E clients’ stores, where he drew on his exceptional memory for customers’ names, the names of their spouses, anniversaries, children, pets and their order histories — to business trips and overseas travel with Kay and their children.

He was an avid duck hunter and a member of the New Crystal Lake Club in Gulfport, Ill., for 30 years, serving on its board, including as president. In Burlington, he was also a member of the Kiwanis Club, First Presbyterian Church and the Burlington Golf Club, where he was also a president; a director of St. Francis Care Center; and for 23 years served on the board of directors of Iowa Southern Utilities and its successor, Alliant Energy. He was a past president of the National Home Furnishings Association. In Iowa City, he served on the committee that helped build the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital; was a member of the University of Iowa Athletic Department Garden Club and 100 Men Who Care Hawkeye chapter; and volunteered with Feed My Starving Children.

Tony is survived by his wife of 62 years, Kay, in Chicago; his son, A.R. Weiler (Elsie), in Golden Valley, Minn.; his daughter, Ann Weiler (Liam Ford), in Chicago; and six grandchildren.

Services will be private at a later date, arranged by the Deeded Body Program at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics. Donations in Tony’s honor may be made for Rainbow Hospice via the Ascension Illinois Foundation.



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