Theodore J. Cox Jr., 84, Heyworth, died at 3:05 a.m. Monday at Heartland Health Care Center, Normal.

The family scheduled a memorial service for 11 a.m. Jan. 25 at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, Bloomington. A celebration and reception will follow the service. Arrangements were handled by Beck Memorial Home, Bloomington.

Ted Cox was born July 2, 1929, in Minneapolis-St. Paul, the only child of Josephine and Theodore J. Cox Sr. He is survived by his wife of 55 years, Carole – they married on Dec. 13, 1958, in Pittsburgh – as well as sons, Theodore J. Cox III and Michael (Lisa) Cox, and grandchildren, Sadie, Megan and Sean Cox.

Mr. Cox was a U.S. Army veteran and a University of Pennsylvania alumnus and graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1956, with a degree in engineering. He was a licensed engineer in four states and designed bridges that remain standing in Wheeling, W.Va., where he worked for American Bridge.

He eventually settled his family in Chicago, where he rose to supervisor of purchasing for Amoco Oil. He and Carole relocated to Denver in the mid-1980s, where both went into real estate. They retired to Heyworth in 1999.

Mr. Cox was a lifelong sports fan, as his father was a football coach who led Tulane to victory in the first Sugar Bowl. He was an avid golfer and worked in later years for The Den in Bloomington. He and Carole took their family on a golfing vacation to Ireland in 1989.

An encyclopedic movie buff and voracious reader, Mr. Cox loved the Heyworth Library.

Mr. Cox’s only real disappointments were that he never shot a hole-in-one or got a chance to shoot his age.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you remember the homeless, the ill, the unemployed and all those less fortunate.