River Haus
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The Old Man

Dad

My dad passed away in late February after a brief illness. We sure miss the guy, the place isn’t the same without him. The dog, for example, is very confused about why he’s no longer immediately shooed out of the old man’s room. We’re keeping his chocolate drawer stocked for the kids, as he did lo, these many years.

The chaplain at the university where I work said this:

“How wonderful to have had such an amazing mother and father.  Rivers play a significant spiritual role in the Bible. And ‘crossing over’ is often seen theologically as crossing over the river….  I like to think your parents are now with all those they have loved and lost, and now wait for all they still love, on the far bank.”

Me too.

Below is my dad’s writeup for the paper.

Robert Thomas Heltzel was born in 1928, in a small town called Davis in the Canaan Valley of West Virginia. Friends called him Bob.

Bob’s parents — both teachers — divorced when he was a child. Bob (known then as Bobby) was raised by his mother’s parents.

His grandfather, Rob Tyson, was the foreman at a nearby coal mine. Young Bob would remember hearing his grandfather walking home from the mine on payday, after a few drinks, singing as he went down the street. When Bob was in middle school, a cave mine collapse killed his grandfather, whom he adored. It was a painful loss that would stay with him through his life.

His grandmother, Zella Mae, raised him. Zella had a stark sense of right and wrong, and would pay Bobby a dollar to beat up bullies in the neighborhood. His lifelong aversion to chicken started in her backyard, where Zella would send him to chase one down and prepare it for dinner.

After high school, near the end of World War II, Bob and some high school friends signed up for the Marines, shortly after surrender of Japan. They began training, but the Marines were winding down the war effort and sent them all home.

After being released by the Marines, Bob went down to the mine in Davis to see if he could get a job. The foreman said they didn’t have any work. Then the foreman asked: “Are you Rob Tyson’s grandson? He said: Come back in two weeks, we’ll find a job for you.”

In high school, Bob’s basketball coach drove him to a small music conservatory that was starting a team. He was offered a scholarship to Shenandoah College, in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, where he would earn his associate’s degree. Bob recalled that the basketball scholarship saved him from a life of coal mining.

Dad appears in the middle row, far right, looking a bit like a young Benedict Cumberbatch.

During the Korean War Bob signed up for the Navy’s Officer Candidate School. After completing OCS, he was assigned to the USS John Hood, a World-War II-era destroyer, as a lieutenant commander. In a bit of luck that would occur throughout his life, while sailing to Korea, an armistice was signed, ending hostilities.

When Bob returned home, he attended American University in Washington and earned his MBA. There he met a beautiful, athletic blonde student named Gretchen, at a fraternity dance, though they both arrived with different dates. Bob and Gretchen hit it off, and began seeing each other. They’d take trolleys around town and listen to big band music at the Willard Hotel. They married in 1955 at a Navy Chapel near AU, and held the reception at a George Washington University fraternity house.

Just married: Leaving the Naval Chapel near American University.

Bob went to work for an investment firm in Northern Virginia in the late 1950s, and he and Gretchen started a family. They would raise five boys — Rob, Eric, Carl, John, and Paul — in Alexandria and Manassas, Virginia.

In 1965, he started his own mortgage business in Arlington, Virginia. Bob was frequently driving to the Western suburbs outside of DC to make home loans. He decided to move where business was booming, and the family relocated to Manassas. His two oldest sons took over the company at his retirement. The mortgage business he began operated for more than 50 years.

Bob was a lifelong athlete, playing basketball, and later tennis, regularly three times a week, into his mid-80s.

Bob loved chocolate, a well-prepared flounder or crab cake, fishing on the Chesapeake Bay, and watching college basketball and pro tennis. He was a deeply intelligent, generous, gruff, and charming man, with a quick and mischievous sense of humor. His sons recall frequently being told by people who met him, even briefly: “I really like your dad.” He enjoyed a glass of wine and a view of the river.

Bob passed away in Richmond, Virginia on Feb. 23, just four months shy of his 95th birthday. He is dearly missed by his sons, daughters-in-law, 22 grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Warsaw at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 29. A life celebration will follow, from 3-6 p.m. at Menokin Road Farm, at 2709 Menokin Road in Warsaw.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Richmond County YMCA where Bob frequently liked to work out and watch his grandchildren play basketball and soccer.

 

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