Lee Earl Erminger

West Point, 1955

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by Mark Erminger on February 2, 2003:

First of all I would like to ask God to help me get through this. My father lived a long life and we are grateful for that. One thing people worry about is that when they die, no one will come to their funeral. I think Dad would be very surprised and very humbled by how many came today and I want to thank you for coming. The other thing that people worry about is that they would have to see one of their children die before them. Thankfully Dad did not have to see that happen I spoke with his sister, my Aunt Millie, and asked her what she would want to say if she could have made it today. She said that he was her brother and her friend. He had a good life and had a lot to be thankful for I wanted this to be a happy occasion and a celebration of his life so I wanted to tell you about my Dad, who he was, and what he liked. I will probably tell you some things you didn't know He was born in New Orleans and lived all over the world during his lifetime. I am sure I will miss a few places he lived but here is what I remember: Growing up he lived in Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, New York, and Arizona where he met my Mom. The Army took him to Germany, Maryland, New Mexico, Alabama, Korea, The Marshall Islands, and Florida. He also lived in Arkansas and Texas Everyone knows he loved airplanes. Did you know that he was in the Air Force Reserve before he went to West Point and was an airplane mechanic? There were always airplanes in our house. I have baby pictures of myself posing with model airplanes. Dad started flying gas powered airplanes when there was no such thing as a radio. They were call U control and you controlled the airplane with two long wires to make the elevator go up and down. He got his first radio controlled airplane when we lived in the Marshall Islands,it was called a Gallopin Ghost (Story about following a weather balloon) He loved going to the flying field and flying with his buddies. He was an amazing R/C Pilot and I am sure his friends will attest to that Dad loved cars and motorcycles. It seems we always had more vehicles than drivers. When he picked up a newspaper, he always started with Cars for Sale. On Friday and Saturday nights, we always drove by the used car lots to see what they had. He owned so many different cars, I don't think I could remember them all: Jaguar, Cadillac, Mercedes, MG TD, Simca, Mustangs, Corvettes, convertibles, mini-vans, and Harley Davidson motorcycles. He was always fixing the cars even when they weren't broke. He told me once that if he hadn?t gone to West Point, he probably would have been a race car mechanic Speaking of West Point, did you know that he got in by accident? He was going to Purdue and was in the Air Force Reserve. He went to take an Air Force test to get another stripe and took the WP Entrance Exam by mistake. He thought that was an awfully hard test just to get a stripe. After he passed the first test, they gave him another test and then told him he had earned an appointment to West Point. He didn't want to go so they told him, since he had two years at Purdue, he would start at WP as a Junior. Also did you know he spent his whole Army career preparing him to go back to WP to teach Spanish? Dad loved sports. We used to watch the ABC Wide World of Sports together every Saturday. We watched NASCAR before it was cool Did you know that he used to race go-karts? He had a go-kart with a chainsaw engine that would go 100 MPH. He also raced cars in what they called GymKana. Did you know that he used to play professional soccer in Germany? He loved watching basketball and football on TV. The Florida College football teams were his favorite, Orlando Magic and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He would have been real excited to watch the Bucs play in the Super Bowl tomorrow We were very blessed to have Dad as long as we did. He could have died when he was 35 and had his first heart attack. He lived 36 more years, pretty incredible considering everything he went through. I never thought he would live to see me graduate from high school. He was able to see his two sons graduate from high school and college, get married and have children. He saw three grandchildren graduate from high school and one from college Thank you again for coming to help us celebrate his wonderful life

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