Obituary for Richard Koenig

Richard Harvey Koenig

February 1, 1936 – October 21, 2022

Richard Harvey Koenig, 86, entered peacefully into eternal life in the early morning hours of October 21, 2022, following a lengthy illness, in Bartlesville, OK. A Rosary Ceremony will be held at Trout funeral home on Friday, November 4, 2022, at 6:30 P.M., with a Mass of Christian Burial to be held at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Saturday, November, 5, 2022, at 10:00 A.M. Those unable to attend the Funeral Mass, may attend virtually on the Trout Funeral Home website, www.troutfuneralhome.com and click on the live-stream or toolbar icon on the top right corner after 9:45 AM.

Arrangements are under the direction of Trout Funeral Home & Crematory, 505 W. Grand Ave., Ponca City, O, 74601.

Richard was born on February 1, 1936, the second of five children, to Richard and Rosalie Koenig, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He spent most of his rambunctious childhood milking cows, driving tractors, and hunting and trapping animals in the wilds of suburban New York City, and aspired to a career as a mountain man in the American West. Cooler heads prevailed, however, and Richard graduated from St. Louis University in 1958, with a degree in the nascent field of geophysical engineering.

The summer after his junior year in college, Richard started what would become a 35-year career with Conoco, Inc. He began in domestic exploration, a position that took him across the United States, including a 5-year assignment in Anchorage, Alaska. After being transferred to international exploration in the early 1980s, Richard served as vice president of Conoco in Stavanger, Norway, for eight years, and traveled the world visiting the company’s many overseas offices. In 1992, Richard retired and returned to his beloved, 310-acre homestead on a hill just east of Lake Ponca.

In 1964, Richard married Mollien Patterson, a beauty pageant queen from Texarkana, Texas, and had five exceedingly good-looking children: Pamela, Matthew, Jennifer, Paul, and Christopher.

Richard enjoyed everything outdoors, including fishing, gardening, farming, and just sitting on the front porch watching the sun set. He could build nearly anything, including a beautiful family home where he lived with his wife for the last 33 years of his life. He was a talented mechanic and electrician, and enjoyed rebuilding old cars, tinkering with electrical devices, repairing farm machinery, and filling coffee cans with various whoz-it’s and what-not’s. In his later years, he became increasingly engaged in his Catholic faith, and read extensively on Catholic theology and apologetics.

Richard is survived by: his wife, Mollien; his children, Pamela Koenig, of St. Paul, MN, Matthew Koenig, of Santa Fe, NM, Jennifer Wilson and husband, Jim, of Bartlesville, OK, Paul Koenig and wife, Erin, of Oslo, Norway, and Christopher Koenig and wife, Mindy, of Oklahoma City, OK.; four sisters, Rosalie Cunningham, Arlene Atkinson, Maria Dunn, and Louise Morris. He is also survived by numerous grandchildren, including, Sarah Spielbush, Daisy and Ian Cummings, Rose Wheeler, Molly, Miriam, Caleb, Connie, Jordan, Josiah, Charity, Emma, Gabriel, Tobias, Xavier, Judah Wilson, River, Story and Zevon Koenig; as well as, three great-grandchildren, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Enoch Wheeler.

Source: Trout Funeral Home