WHO

My father retired in 1968 after serving over 20 years in the U.S. Army. After reenlisting in the Army in 1947, he served in Seoul, South Korea (as personal bodyguard and driver for General Robert Shoe); Fort Riley, Kansas (driver for General George Shea); Frankfort, Germany/Paris, France/Lisbon, Portugal (driver and enlisted aide to General Liebel, who commanded the Military Assistance and Advisory Group or MAAG in Lisbon); and Washington, D.C. (where he was assigned to U.S. Motor Transportation Corps at the Pentagon and attached to the White House until his retirement in 1968). He, my mother, brothers and sisters moved from Arlington, Virginia, to Mankato, Kansas, in 1968. (1989 photo)

Though busy raising six children (I was the oldest), mom always seemed to maintain a bubbly and upbeat attitude no matter the situation. Her unfailing common sense advice (given only when solicited) was always on the mark. She died following a lung operation in Wichita, Kansas, in April 1991, ten years after undergoing a heart operation and a few weeks before our son's graduation from Boston University.

Dad died peacefully on July 26, 2000, at the Grove General Hospital in Grove, Oklahoma, after months of recuperating, most recently at the Grand Lake Villa in Grove, from a serious fall months earlier in his house in Mankato, Kansas, and from other health complications. At the time, he had been staying with my younger sister Cheryl, a registered nurse, who I truly appreciate for the care she and her husband Gregg gave to Dad in his last months. Thankfully, I visited Dad in May while my wife and I were visiting our older daughter and her family in New York City.

Ronald Gene Ormsbee (April 1, 1950 - November 22, 1998)

Ronald, my youngest brother, died in November 1998 at Roseburg, Oregon, following a short illness. He attended schools in Carcavelos, Portugal; Arlington, Virginia; and graduated from Mankato (Kansas) High School in 1969.

_{Ronald
Ormsbee (left) and Bill Ormsbee April 24, 1991}

He served in the U.S. Army from 1970 to 1972, including a tour in Vietnam with the 20th Engineer Battalion (Combat). Later he worked on construction projects in several states.

>>NEXT PAGE

Site developed, owned and maintained by

William H. Ormsbee, Jr. 2005

(Entire section originally published on WHO's IN RETROSPECT web site, December 1999)