Around an estimated 600 people packed into the Collingwood Arts Center’s auditorium on July 24 to sing hymns, play melancholy classical pieces and tell stories about Toledo’s activist, environmentalist and musician Robert Brundage.

Robert ‘Dr. Bob’ Brundage at the May 20 ‘Song of Toledo’ concert at the Main Toledo-Lucas County Public Library, Downtown Toledo.

The crowd fell silent to the tones of a harp, a cello, an organ and the TSO string quartet and some friends and family read Bible passages and excerpts from essays by Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

To celebrate Brundage’s life, some also shared their own poems.

“He…this flower of a man… beckoned me to look closer,” Warren Woodbery read to the crowd in his poem “A Flower that is not a Weed.” “He beckoned me to see what he saw from this crack in the sidewalk. He beckoned me to see a city, a neighborhood and a cause.”

Brundage’s brother, David, told the crowd how Brundage developed his love for nature even as a small child, playing in the dirt in their backyard and climbing ginkgo and cherry trees. Brundage cared for a slew of animals, including parakeets, hamsters, dogs and even a rat, David Brundage added.

Brundage graduated from University of Toledo and lived in Boston until he retired. With an engineering physics degree and Ph.D. in biophysics, Brundage designed medical instruments, researched for a company called Instrumentation Laboratory Inc. and worked as a chemist for the National Bureau of Standards among other professions.

He also recorded and edited performances for Harvard University, MIT, New England Conservatory and others.

He moved to back to his hometown of Toledo to care for his sick father and ended up staying in Toledo because he had made such strong bonds in the community, Brundage said.

Some at the memorial service knew “Dr. Bob” as a teacher, an environmentalist, a colleague, a partner in justice or a friend.

“Emerson would have called Bob’s life “well-lived,” said Reverend Lynn Kerr of the First Unitarian Church of Toledo. “He found inspiration and meaning for a great many and he believed every being had worth and dignity. Our congregation stresses working for justice and peace, something that Bob embodied.”

Politicians at the local and even state level wrote resolutions memorializing Brundage. State Senators passed a resolution to memorialize Brundage and Toledo’s city council members passed a resolution in Brundage’s honor, also dedicating a bike path to him.

David Brundage made some of his first memories as a child with his brother Robert biking on the path and running around in Ottawa Park’s expansive grassy spaces and wooded areas.

So when Mayor Carty Finkbeiner dedicated the bicycle path that encircles the entire park, friends and family at the dedication ceremony said choosing this site to honor Robert Brundage was very fitting.

“For decades we have participated in all the things this park has to offer,” Brundage said.

Finkbeiner and other city officials named the path in his honor on July 24, the day of the memorial ceremony, presenting signs that read “Robert Brundage Bike Trail; Ottawa Park” to be posted along various points in the trail.

Brundage rode his bike everywhere, regardless of weather or distance, to avoid polluting with automobile emissions, many friends have said.

Ottawa Park, the city’s largest park with the longest paved path in the area, was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, a leader of the late 1800’s movement to beautify cities, said Harry Ward, president of the Ottawa-Jermain Park Advisory Board. Olmsted designed major parks in cities across the country, including Central Park, in hopes that natural beauty and well-preserved landscape would draw people to the city and offer a solution to crowded, stressful circumstances in down-town areas.

Brundage shared Olmested’s philosophy that linked a city’s well-being to the natural world, Ward said.

“This is Toledo’s version of Central Park,” said Michael Szuberla, one of Brundage’s friends through Toledo Grows. “It’s the heart and lungs of the city.”

Finkbeiner told the crowd that he and other city officials wanted to honor Brundage because of his deep impact on everyone in the city.

“Bob was a rare individual,” Finkbeiner said. “Bob, by his example, taught us about love and life.”

Brundage died on July 7, at age 66, a little over two weeks after 15-year-old Dailahntae Jemison attacked him and robbed him of his bike at the corner of Victoria Place and Collingwood Avenue.

“Robert was a sinew of energy and he spread energy and positivity and goodness to all of us and I hope you all will continue to do that in your own special way,” said Audrey Johnson, Executive Director of the Collingwood Arts Center.

Tags: Brundage

This entry was posted on Friday, July 24th, 2009 at 10:54 am and is filed under Breaking News, Community.
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