"Well Done Good and Faithful Servant"

"Well Done Good and Faithful Servant" are the words I believe Joe's Dad heard as he enter heavens gate April 23, 2012 at 7:40 am.

There are some many things I don't want to forget about the days leading up to and including his wake and funeral.  

*Going to get Drew a suit and Hunter immediatley picking something out for himself.  He ended up with the new suit. Drew wore a jacket of Hunter's and a new pair of pants.

* Hunter wanted to get a tie in his Granpa favorite color.  Joe called his Mom she said it was blue not dark/not too light and that Grandpa would have that color tie on.  We got 3 ties all in the most beautiful color of royal blue. 

*It was is that same conversation that I was asked to do a reading and Joe was told that he was voted on as the one to say the eulogy.  No pressure.  We had been working on an obituary that everyone liked.     

*Drew and Hunter were asked to be honorary pallbearers.

*We had a band trip as well as other family members being out of town.  Joe's Mom graciously gave enough time for everyone to get home and gather their thoughts.  His funeral was a week after he died.

*The wake was from 2-9pm.  It was heart warming to have a steady stream of people for all 7 hours.  

*ALL of Joe's friends stopping by

*The next morning saying a last goodbye with all 6 of his children gather around their mother and all of his granchildren in attendance.

*The pallbearers being called to circle up for instructions Joe, his brother, Bob and Jim, Son- in- Law George, grandsons Bobby, Drew, Hunter and good friend Tom Dunn.

*The persession to the church and upon entry the preist said the most beautiful prayer and draped a cloth with a cross over the casket. 

*The song "Surely the Present of The Lord is in this Place" as we proccessed in.
   
I read Revelation 21 1-7  The New Jerusalem

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. ² And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

³ I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them.^{[a] 4} He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”

⁵ And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.” ⁶ And he also said, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. ⁷ All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.

Joe finished the service with a eulogy befitting of his life. This is what he said:

Robert Joseph Dorman, a.k.a. "Bob"; entered the Pearly Gates of Heaven on Monday, April 23, 2012, he was 82 years old.  Apparently there was a need for another electrician to help keep the lights on. 

Survival

Dad survived being born during the Great Depression; Scarlet Fever and the resulting 28 days of home quarantine;  he was crushed by an overhead crane at work;  had two back surgeries; a quintuple heart bypass surgery; hernia repair surgery;  six kids; and 30+ years of Meigs disease. But it was Alzheimer's that finally took its toll on Bob.

 

The Beginning

He was born on November 5, 1929, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Werner and Adeline Dorman.  He graduated from St Rita High School class of 1947 and played the tenor saxophone in the band.   After high school he attended Washburn Trade School and the Illinois Institute of Technology and studied electrical engineering. 

 

Work, Military, and Civic Life

He delivered newspapers for the Chicago Herald American Newspaper and worked part time at Englewood Electric Supply Company making 40 cents an hour. 

He joined Hyre Electric Company in 1947 working in the stock room and loading trucks, making 60 cents an hour.  He spent 4 years working as an electrical apprentice, then 8 years as a foreman until suffering his back injury.  After his recovery he began working in the office as an electrical estimator and project engineer, eventually working his way up to the position of Vice President and remained there until his retirement in 1993 after 46 years of service.  His largest project was the Sears Tower, the tallest building in the world at that time.  Dad had to miss the topping out ceremony for the Sears Tower because my brother Jim was being born.  I’m told that at these ceremonies, that workers write their names and messages on a special beam before it’s hoisted into place.  Obviously, Dad missed the ceremony, so the next time he went to the job site he took elevators as high as he could, then climbed the stairs, and finally he had to climb a few ladders and found that beam way up high in the building and wrote everyone’s names on it.  By the way, the Sears Tower will ALWAYS be the Sears Tower to everyone in our family. 

He was a proud member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, local # 134 for over 60 years.

Bob also served in the Army Reserve for 6 years in the 681st Transportation Truck Company and received an honorable discharge with the rank of Sergeant.

Dad also served on the advisory board of St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island; was an usher here at St. Linus Church; and was instrumental in starting the St. Linus Boy Scout Troop 1615 and held many leadership positions in the troop.

Courtship

He married the love of his life and best friend, Mary Delores Jann, on September 12, 1953, at Little Flower Catholic Church.  They met at a Sunday night dance at St. Kilian’s Catholic Church; a dance that Mom had to lie about her age to get into.  You see, she was too young!  During their courtship, Dad would call Mom all the time. During those days you had to actually give the operator the phone number you wanted to call.  He called so often, that his sisters, who hid under the table to listen and make funny sounds, still remember Mom’s phone number  “Stewart 3 - 0844”. They settled into their first home on Christiana Street until 1963 until it became too small for their growing family.   They have lived in Oak Lawn ever since.

  

Family

What a family he had.  Bob is survived by his wife of 58 years, Mary Delores, his children, Robert  (Maureen), Julie Boone, MaryBeth Dorman, Joe (Tiffany), Joan Crosse (George), Jim (Josune), and grandchildren in birth order, Kristina, Howard, Ashley, Becky, Kathryn, Bobby, Drew, Hunter, Brittany, Matthew, Isabel, Sofia and Victoria.  Bob was preceded by his parents, granddaughter Beth Ann Dorman, sister Adeline Dees, and trusted canine companions Pal, Lassie, Smokey and Juneau.

He is also survived by his siblings, brother Tom, sisters, Dolores Dorman, Betty Bauer, Mary Pozeck, and Monica Diehl.

Friends

You know you've found a good man when you can find someone who has been his friend for 80 years.  That award goes to Mr. Adolph Gabriel who first met Dad as young neighbors.  They were so close that they created their own language and would communicate in a gibberish that no one else could understand.  Dad did make other friends over the years and was a founding member of the ADGVT Club, which was a group of friends that met monthly for dinner at each other's homes.  Apparently, at some point during the evening, my Dad would saunter quietly off to the host's bedroom and reset the alarm clock for 2:30 AM.  It took awhile for the group to make the connection that it was my Dad behind the early morning alarms, and not a malfunctioning alarm clock.  But they let him remain in the club.  They still meet today.

 

Toys and Hobbies

Pop-up camper

We enjoyed many summer vacations camping in National Parks, especially Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Rocky Mountain, and Glacier National Parks.  We started camping in a pop-up camper.  In order to save space, Dad would allow each family member to pack whatever they wanted, as long as it fit into a brown paper grocery bag, he was the only one allowed to use a suitcase. This is the reason that Mary Beth came up with the nickname “Chief”.  He was the Chief and everyone knew it.

I remember a camping trip with my Jann cousins.  We were at Devils Lake and I remember it raining like crazy.  The only problem was that my cousins were camping in a tent towards the bottom of a hill and water was entering their tent.  My Uncle Joe was out there in the rain with his hammer digging a trench around the tent so that the water would flow around it and not inside it.  This was happening while we were high and dry in our pop up camper.  Ahhhh, the memories!

 

Bus

You know, with all of the things that went on in a house with 6 kids, 2 parents, dogs and cats, and an undetermined amount of fish.......there is one event that sticks out in my mind like it was yesterday.  It was the day that Dad came home and said he bought the bus.  The family was eating dinner, it was raining out, and Dad comes in through the side door into the kitchen, he says, "Guess what, I bought that bus", and he proceeds to walk through the kitchen into the living room so he could hang up his coat in the front hall closet.  Mom was following him hot on his tail and she was saying "What?, You bought that bus?  How could you?", "Bob, what the BLEEP were you thinking?" 

He spent many weekends restoring the bus, repairing broken windows, the plumbing system, and fixing electrical problems.  After about a year of work the family began to enjoy many more years of family camping. 

Now his family traveled in style and everyone could pack their clothes in their very own dresser drawer.  During vacations with the bus, my brother Bob and Dad would fight to get in the driver’s seat first; I was so jealous because I was too young to drive at the time. 

I think that my brother Bob secretly enjoyed driving the bus on those winding mountain roads with big drop offs right at the edge of road, just so he could watch how "excited" Mom got seeing those edges.  Hence the term "edge-itis" was coined to describe Mom grabbing onto anything close to her and holding on for dear life.

Fishing

An avid fisherman found him the proud owner of 21 foot Fibreform boat where he spent many weekends and summer vacations chasing after Chinook Salmon in Lake Michigan and Door County Wisconsin.  Joan caught the largest fish on his boat, weighing in at 32 pounds.

BUT, you should have seen the one that got away!  Before the big boat, Julie recalls a fishing trip when she was about 3 years old when Dad caught and landed a large Northern Pike.  The fish was in the boat flopping around and Julie was starting to climb the sides of the boat to get out and she could here Mom shouting at Dad from shore to watch out for Julie.  Dad was torn, but after measuring the fish, he threw it back in the water and kept Julie.  Later that night, he was telling folks about his tale and how large the fish was and they all said he should have kept the fish because it would have been a record.  Over the years, on those rare occasions when Julie would do something that was not so pleasing to Dad, he would mutter "I should have kept the fish."

Somehow, he even got Hyre Electric to spring for a fishing trip to the Arctic Circle so he could "entertain customers".  That trip resulted in the mounted Rainbow Trout that has been living in the basement for decades.

When Dad found a good fishing spot, he would mark the bottom of the boat with an "X" so he would know where to come back to next time.

Dad taught us the fisherman's creed:  "Early to bed, early to rise, fish like heck and make up lies."

Stocks

He was an avid and knowledgeable stock market enthusiast spending many hours reading over stock reports, looking at stock tables in the newspaper, and preaching his most famous stock tip, "Buy low, sell high".   He also became quite good at predicting the direction of the next few days, months, or years of trading....his prediction was...that the stock market would "fluctuate". 

Bob would always fill out those forms to get free annual reports for various companies, but he would check the "all" box, instead of selecting individual companies, and within a couple of weeks boxes and boxes of annual reports showed up at the house.

Dad’s Jokes

Then there are those corny jokes as his granddaughter Kristina fondly recalled on her facebook page last week. Have you ever heard this one?

"Do your hands hurt?"; which you reply "No, why"?  And he would say, "Well, they should, they have nails in them!"  AND……he would laugh every time!

Has anyone heard his advice on the three most important aspects of real estate?  “Location, location, location”.

Did I tell you I’m working on my 2^nd million?  I gave up on the first!

Annnd another classic……

"Why do firemen sleep on the second floor?"......everyone, all together now,....."Because their beds are up there!".

I cut it twice and it's still too short!

 

Retirement

Upon retirement, Dad would frequently comment that he was so busy he doesn’t know how he had time to work.  He would spend hours and hours every morning hanging out with friends at Dunkin Donuts, solving the world’s problems and trading stock tips.  He now had even more time to devout to his stock research where he would underline important information in research reports and newspapers.  In the summer of 1995, he was also able to fulfill a dream of his to take a road trip up the Alaska Highway.  He did this trip in yet another toy, a Class-C motor home.

Summary

He was a faithful man, faithful to his God, faithful to his wife, and faithful to his family.  He worked hard to provide for his family and taught them respect, kindness, humility, and the value of a strong work ethic.  Bob was a kind man with a great sense of humor and was always willing to lend a hand.

Dad was always proud to get in the last word; "Yes Dear".

 

We would like to thank: 

All of the staff at Providence Health Care Nursing Home who treated him with care, dignity, and respect.  

And all of you who visited him at the nursing home; Tom Dunn for his providing his special attention; and everyone for all of your thoughts and prayers.

I used to say that my Dad was in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimer’s, well, he’s not suffering now. 

*We processed out to "On Eagles Wings" and in the narthex another prayer was said.

*Afterward we went to a chapel on the cemetry grounds. Everyone gathered close around the casket and the preist said a last prayer.   

 

This is what appeared in the paper: 

Robert J. "Bob" Dorman, 82. Loving husband and best friend for 58 years of Mary Delores; beloved father of Robert (Maureen), Julie Boone, Mary Beth Dorman, Joe (Tiffany), Joan (George) Crosse, and Jim (Josune); proud grandfather of Kristina, Howard, Ashley, Becky, Kathryn, Bobby, Drew, Hunter, Brittany, Matthew, Isabel, Sofia, Victoria and the late Beth Ann; devoted son of the late Werner and Adeline Dorman; fond brother of Tom, Dolores Dorman, Betty Bauer, Mary Pozeck, Monica Diehl and the late Adeline Dees. Bob joined Hyre Electric Company in 1947 and worked his way up to the position of Vice President and remained there until his retirement in 1993 after 46 years of service. A 1947 graduate of St. Rita High School and attended Washburn Trade School and the Illinois Institute of Technology. Served in the Army Reserves in the 681st Transportation Truck Company. Proud member for over 60 years of IBEW Local #134. Visitation Monday 3:00-9:00 p.m. Funeral Tuesday 10:15 a.m. from Blake-Lamb Funeral Home, 4727 W. 103rd Street, Oak Lawn to St. Linus Church, Mass 11:00 a.m. Interment Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.