‘Ricky the Oil Man’ of Yukon had lifelong fascination with the petroleum business
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Richard Catone was well known as “Ricky the Oil Man.”
His reputation even extended to when his daughter Cynthia Sherwin moved into his former childhood home in Yukon.
“People used to call all the time trying to pay their bills or with a question for my dad,” she said.
The Catone Oil Co. operated for more than four decades before Mr. Catone sold it to Export Fuel Co., and its namesake was a lifetime member of the Pittsburgh Petroleum Association as well as former board member for the Pennsylvania Petroleum Association.
“He couldn’t stand to let anyone be cold,” said Sherwin, a Yukon resident. “He extended a lot of credit to a lot of people he probably shouldn’t have. But that was just the way he was.”
Richard “Richie” Catone of Yukon died Monday, Feb. 17, 2020, at Westmoreland Manor in Hempfield. He was 82.
Mr. Catone was born March 29, 1937, in Yukon, the son of the late Joseph and Susie (Cicci) Catone.
Mr. Catone began his lifelong fascination with the oil business at age 7, when he started pumping gasoline into Model A’s at his uncle Amerigo Cicci’s Ford dealership in Yukon. By age 14, he was working there after school every day.
After graduating from South Huntingdon Township High School in 1955, he worked as a service station manager at J.M. Celapino and Sons, eventually purchasing one of their businesses in West Newton and operating it as Catone’s Town Tire.
“Then he went to work as a U.S. Steel supervisor at the Christy Park Works in McKeesport,” Sherwin said. “He helped supervise while they were making bombs during the Vietnam War.”
During his time at U.S. Steel, he and his second wife, the late Merrijo (Cochenour) Catone, started Catone Oil Co. in 1972.
“He was also involved in the community as a Mason and a Shriner,” Sherwin said. “He and my stepmother used to go to Washington, D.C., a lot because Merrijo’s brother was stationed there in the service. They also loved to go to Erie to sit on the beach at Presque Isle, and they went to Niagara Falls a good deal as well.”
Mr. Catone was a 32nd-degree Mason, a lifetime member of the West Newton Sportsmen’s Association, a charter member of the Fifth District Democratic Club and a member of the Blyth Lodge No. 593.
He was a longtime member of the former Gratztown Primitive Methodist Church, where he often served in the pulpit when the late Rev. Donald Dalke was unable to officiate.
“He was a people person,” Sherwin said. “You could not go anywhere, and I mean anywhere, including Niagara Falls, without running into someone he knew. Whether we were shopping, eating, it took us forever to get things done, because he always stopped to talk with people who knew him.”
In addition to penning his own obituary, Mr. Catone had a request of his daughter.
“One of the last things he asked me was … ‘I want one of those obituary feature stories,’ ” she said. “He really enjoyed reading them.”
Mr. Catone is survived by his daughter, Cynthia Sue Sherwin of Yukon; grandsons, Matthew Sherwin of Pittsburgh, Stephen Sherwin of McKeesport and Cody Korman of Kent, Ohio; granddaughter, LacyJo Catone; and four great-grandchildren.
Friends will be received from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at J. William McCauley Jr. Funeral Home, 901 Vine St., West Newton, where an 11 a.m. funeral will take place Friday.