Mr. Deszo “Ernie” Balogh

Published 10:48 am Wednesday, June 25, 2025

November 16, 1926 – May 7, 2025

Deszo “Ernie” Balogh, 98, father, grandfather, WWII veteran, and local businessman, died Wednesday, May 7, 2025. He lived a storied life.

Born November 16, 1926, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, he was the youngest of 6 children of Hungarian immigrant parents. Often on his own, he spent much time traipsing the nearby woods. A lover of nature, he adopted many animals including a hawk, an opossum, and a skunk. He also fished and ran a trap line to help support his family during the Depression.

After graduating high school in 1944 (during WWII), he immediately entered The Merchant Marine Academy. In early 1945, the Academy shipped his class to sea to help with the war effort. The Academy “lost” his class and they ended up serving 18 months on various ships. Ernie sailed in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific, mainly on The Somme, a T2 tanker. Eventually recalled to the Academy as a WWII veteran, Ernie earned his engineering BS in 1948. Around this time, he converted to Catholicism.

Ernie met his lifelong love, Jean Cannon of Allentown, Pa. on a blind date. He proposed to Jean on their third date. They married May 5, 1951, and their marriage lasted for 71 lovely years until her death February 5, 2023. After their wedding, Jean and Ernie headed west to Los Angeles where Ernie worked at Douglas Aircraft. They moved to Sunnyvale in 1960 for his job with Lockheed Aerospace. There, Ernie and Jean raised 4 children – Thomas, Rebecca, Christopher, and Theresa – along with a menagerie of critters. Dad was a committed fisherman; his forays ever further north eventually brought him to the Rogue Valley where the family would settle in 1970.

In Medford, he and Jean ran many businesses including laundromats, the first mini-storage in the valley, and his core business, Balogh Enterprises, a restaurant equipment and refrigeration repair company. Ernie also worked a variety of jobs including training Goodwill clients in appliance repair. He was a natural teacher and loved teaching.

Ernie and Jean were fully involved in their Catholic faith and were founding members of two churches: Church of the Resurrection in Sunnyvale, and Shepherd of the Valley in Central Point. Though a conservative Catholic, he fully embraced Jesus’s core teaching of love and welcomed LGBT and foreign family members and cared about everyone who came into his life. In retirement, Ernie and Jean traveled America and the globe. As Jean fell into ill health he devoted more time to her, and fishing and other pursuits fell away. Still, he always enjoyed bird watching through the kitchen window.

Ernie was tremendously practical. When anything requiring fixing came his way he would immediately set down to do it, and do it well. As a gentle man who lived a meaningful and interesting life, Ernie was smart, devout, funny, kind and decent. He was a good man, a gentleman raconteur, who loved telling and hearing a good story. He is greatly missed.

The Funeral Mass will be held July 1 at Shepherd of the Valley Catholic Church, 600 Beebe Rd, Central Point, OR at 10 am, followed immediately by a reception at the church hall. Interment will be Eagle Point National Cemetery.