Obituaries : * Carl A. Linkletter; Former Ventura Businessman

Carl A. Linkletter, the former owner of Carl’s Frozen Foods and a longtime Ventura resident, has died. He was 80.

Linkletter, who also had owned Mae & Carl’s truck stop cafe in Montalvo and Carl’s Drive-In in Saticoy, died Thursday after suffering a stroke.

Born in 1915 in Coal Creek, Tenn., Linkletter moved to Whittier with his family when he was 5. He graduated from Whittier High School in 1934.

After a stint working with the Conservation Corps, Linkletter joined the U.S. Army National Guard. He served in the South Pacific between 1942 and 1945 during World War II, working as a cook. After his military service, Linkletter worked for Southern California Edison.

“He loved to cook,” said Linkletter’s wife of 53 years, Anna Mae Linkletter, 77. “When they had a strike at the Edison Co., nobody wanted to hire him so we bought the truck stop.”

After owning Mae & Carl’s between 1959 and 1963, Linkletter purchased a restaurant in Saticoy, naming it Carl’s Drive-In. Linkletter sold that restaurant in 1965 and started Carl’s Frozen Foods, a frozen food distributing company.

“He loved people and he loved to talk and he was quite the salesman,” Anna Mae Linkletter said. “He never saw a stranger in his life.”

Linkletter retired in 1980, but his wife said he continued to cook, camp, fish and pursue other hobbies.

“We took our motor home and went on a ferry up into Alaska and stopped all over the islands,” his wife said. Linkletter said she and her husband also took several cruises, stopping in the Caribbean, Venezuela and St. Thomas.

Linkletter was a member of several organizations, including San Buenaventura Lodge 214 F & A.M., Scottish Rite Bodies of Ventura County, Ventura Shrine Club; Al Malaikah Shrine, Los Angeles Temple; Order of the Eastern Star Ventura/Fillmore Chapter 79; he was former president of Oxnard Eagle Lodge No. 232 and a former member of the Saticoy Lions Club.

In addition to his wife, Linkletter is survived by a daughter, Joan Renner of Ridgecrest; sons Steven E. Linkletter of Las Vegas, Roger Linkletter and Gregory Linkletter of Ventura, 12 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Services are scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday at Ted Mayr Funeral Home, 3150 Loma Vista Rd. in Ventura. Burial will follow at Ivy Lawn Cemetery in Ventura.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children, 3160 Geneva, Los Angeles, CA 90020.