Obituaries

Larry Edward Adkins, 73, of Ottawa Lake, Michigan, passed away peacefully in his home on November 18, 2025. He was born April 21, 1952, in Toledo, Ohio, to Howard M. and Mary Ann (Dacey) Adkins.

Larry grew up in the small town of Northwood, Ohio and graduated from Northwood High School in 1970, where he was a member of the football and wrestling teams. He and his two younger brothers, Eddie and Howie, spent their childhoods helping on the family farm, selling bibb lettuce and other produce at the Erie Street Market, and playing with their friends and cousins in their tightknit neighborhood.

He met Debra Sue Lamberton in 1970 and they married in 1973. Together they built a homestead in Ottawa Lake where they lived for the last 50 years, raising two daughters, cultivating massive annual summer gardens, and caring for a slew of animals including horses, rabbits, dogs, cats, fish, and one macaw.

Larry took classes at Bowling Green State University for a year after high school and completed an apprenticeship as a millwright. He worked as a millwright and UAW member at the Jeep plant in Toledo for over thirty years, making countless friends, and retired in 2019.

With an insatiable curiosity about the world and an impressive ability to build, make, and problem-solve, Larry was an avid reader, gardener, cook, woodworker and carpenter, and with his brothers and father, built several family houses (including his own). He was also interested in sports and exercise—from tennis and racquetball, to football and softball, to ice skating and swimming, to horseback riding and cross-country skiing, to fishing (which he did often with his brother Howie on Lake Erie, and in his own backyard pond.) Larry was also deeply interested in environmentalism, studying and implementing ways to grow a completely organic garden. He was an avid reader of Mother Earth News and did his best to live lightly on the earth.

In the early 1990s, Larry and Deb earned their SCUBA certifications and spent the next few decades traveling and diving around the world with friends from The Aqua Hut in Toledo. They were able to visit the Galapagos, Yap and Palau, Fiji, the Philippines, Cozumel, the Cayman Islands, and countless other locales. He also took up photography, including underwater photography, trying to capture his perspectives of the world. He and Deb have been regulars at Ventura’s Mexican Restaurant in Toledo for decades, stopping in a couple times a week for delicious food and margaritas, and socializing with all the staff and other regulars.

Larry was devoted to his family and friends and spent much of his life helping others and spending quality time with those he loved. He was delighted to become a grandfather nineteen years ago and be coined Peepok by his grandsons.

He is survived by his loving wife Debbie; his daughters Liese (Michael) Zahabi, and Lori (David) Gehring-Rorabeck; his grandsons Preston and Brian Gehring, and granddaughters Avilyn and Avery “Teeny” Rorabeck; his brother Howard “Howie” (Darla) Adkins; and his sister-in-law Charleen Cassavore Adkins

Larry is preceded in death by his parents, Howard and Mary Ann Adkins; and his brother Edward “Eddie” Adkins.

A visitation will be held on Monday, November 24, 2025, from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at Walker Funeral Home in Sylvania, with a short service at 6:00 p.m.

To order memorial trees or send flowers to the family in memory of Larry E. Adkins, please visit our flower store.