On the day that we buried my father-in-law, my wife handled herself with such grace and composure that she was almost regal. We arrived early at the funeral home to prepare ourselves for what we knew was going to be one of the hardest days of our lives. Tracey decided that she alone would give the eulogy, without the help of a preacher, or even another family member, and she knocked it out of the park.
“Bob Armbruster was a man of contradictions,” she began with what was surely going to be a tear jerker. “He was the last founding member of the McMahan Fire Department,” and one of her earliest memories was watching her grandfather, or “Pops” as he was known to the other firefighters, smoking a cigar and rolling the coins that had been collected by McMahan for The Crusade for Children. Meanwhile, there was a picture of her father, or “Bobby” as he was known throughout the firehouse, with a three year old Tracey slung over one shoulder, and a bucket full of coins for The Crusade in his hand. This picture hung on the walls of the firehouse for years because it captured the spirit of the generosity of the time and money that the firemen had dedicated to the Crusade over the years.
The contradiction comes from when Grandpa had cancer when he was still in his fifties and the firehouse gave him an award for his years of service. Grandpa beat the cancer but thought that the firehouse was writing him off by giving him that reward, so he quit McMahan to begin thirty more years of service, this time he volunteered for the German American Club. He still loved the firehouse, continuing to listen to the scanner at night and keeping firefighter memorabilia around the house, but he was too stubborn to go back to his old friends at McMahan.
Another contradiction was that Grandpa was an extremely private person. When his wife died he decided to continue to live by himself at their patio home. Bob was set in his ways and didn’t like change, but when an ice storm hit Louisville and knocked out the power to his daughter’s house, he “opened his small home to my family of five. We ended up staying for a whole week, and it was cramped in that little two bedroom home, but Dad never complained while his daughter and grandchildren lived with him and never brought up the incident again.” It is with this spirit of generosity that Bob Armbruster will be remembered.
One final contradiction was Bob’s complicated relationship with money. According to Tracey, her father would drive twenty miles out of his way to find a gas station with lower prices so that he could save a couple of dollars to fill up his tank. He did not like to spend money needlessly. And yet, if a friend was in need and asked Bob for a dime, “My father would give his friend his last nickel. And then he would ask four other people to give his friend a nickel so that he would have a quarter and would no longer be in need.” Also, he gave his grandchildren a monetary gift at Christmas every year to ensure that they would not want for anything. The money was spent on their education, their cars, vacations, and other things that they otherwise would not be able to afford. Every time they bought something with Grandpa’s help, they were sure to say thank you to him, and it is those three grandchildren who are the legacy of Bob Armbruster.
At the end of the eulogy, Tracey grabbed her father’s old fireman’s helmet from the pedestal that was situated next to the coffin, held it close to her heart, and allowed herself to take a moment to cry.
After the funeral, an old firetruck led the procession to the cemetery. Only it wasn’t just any firetruck. Bob had written the grant which supplied the money for the firetruck, McMahan’s first, and it was commonly referred to as the old milk truck because it was painted white and it the volunteers used to serve ice cream out of it at picnics. Grandpa was laid to rest next to his wife in a crypt which the two used to call their “condo for eternity.” Situated next to them are their longtime friends, the Waldrons, and while they were alive the two couples used to joke that they saw the afterlife as one big long party together. Grandpa was not a particularly religious man, so that thought that he could spend forever playing cards and enjoying the company of his wife and friends, is not a bad way to spend the rest of time.
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