Lucian Petras was born in the Bavarian town of Peiting, in southern Germany, on January 16, 1947.  He died peacefully at home in Verona, Virginia, on June 17, 2022.

He immigrated to the United States in 1953, along with his mother, Mariele Petras, and his grandmother, Maria Petras, following his aunt, Karli Petras, who had married an American soldier, Russell Rethmeier. He began first grade in Little Port, Iowa, where he learned English just by working and playing with his fellow classmates.

He and his mother eventually settled in Washington, D.C., where Lucian was a member of the Boys' Choir of St. Matthew's Cathedral, and sang for then-Senator John F. Kennedy.

He spent his high school years at Staunton Military Academy in Staunton, Virginia. He became a United States citizen when he was 16.

On returning to Washington, he worked for a civil engineering company (then called Paciulli and Associates) that was so well-established that its founder had collaborated on surveying projects with George Washington. He was an accomplished draughtsman, whose architectural drawings and neatly crafted letterings are a pleasure to behold.

He was drafted in 1966, and served in the Army's ceremonial unit, the Third U.S. Infantry, The Old Guard, where he participated in military funerals at Arlington National Cemetery, and stood guard at the White House.

He married Sarah Carrington Hannah on December 22, 1967, and twelve days later was in Vietnam, where he served in the field with the 196 ^th Infantry Brigade in Chu Lai.

When he returned to the states, he attended Northern Virginia Community College, and after several years in northern Virginia, he and his good friend, Homer Rourke, started their own company, Keystone Land Surveying, in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, where his daughter Sera Elizabeth, was born.

When his daughter approached school age, he and his family moved back to Staunton, where he has been working as a building contractor for the past forty years.  In Staunton, he sang with the choirs of Trinity Episcopal Church for over twenty years, participated in the earliest Trinity mission trips, two of them with his daughter, to build a church in Honduras, and spent several years as a volunteer and project manager for Habitat for Humanity. He was the only man on the Habitat Women's Build in 1998, so he answered to "Lucy" for that project.  He built and remodeled houses in Staunton and Augusta County, mentored many aspiring young carpenters, built bespoke items for ShenanArts as well as for friends and neighbors, and gave a helping hand to whoever needed it, never claiming any special reward or recognition.

He was a creative chef who enjoyed reading cookbooks and making his own take on a dish, and one of his recent pleasures was to sit quietly on his riding mower, watching the wildlife that wandered in from the surrounding woods, curious about that human who obviously posed no threat to them.

He is survived by his wife, Carrington, daughter Sera Elizabeth, son-in-law Christopher Widener, granddaughter Chloë Widener, cousins Judy Rethmeier Bartholomew, Roger and Billy Rethmeier, and several nieces and nephews via his cousins and sister-in-law, Elizabeth Hanna.

We feel our world a little less bright today, now that he has left us, but it is really so much brighter for our having known him, having been touched by his care and devotion.

Coffman Funeral Home and Crematory, 230 Frontier Drive, Staunton is in charge of his arrangements.