GREENFIELD — In the photograph from 1991, Alan Trobe wears a cone hat strapped to his head in celebration of his granddaughter’s second birthday.
He faces the camera with both arms up, biceps flexed and fists clenched in a strong-man pose with a teeth-gritting grin.
It’s one of Catherine Roberts’ favorite photos of her grandfather.
“When I was little, I remember thinking he was the strongest man in the world,” she said.
Roberts and other loved ones saw the way he showed his strength throughout his life in the way he raised his family and overcame struggles. They saw how that strength complemented his warmth and humor.
And they watched with great sadness how quickly that strength could fade in the wake of a COVID-19 infection that took his life on Jan. 4, 2021, at age 76.
His wife, Ruth Ann Trobe; daughter, Dawn Hamilton; and Roberts provided written answers to questions about the kind of man he was and his battle as well as the effects both have had on them.
Devoted to family
Alan Trobe met his future wife at the Brookside Community Center in Indianapolis. She played volleyball there, as did he, along with basketball. He was 18, and she was 16. Her first recognition of him was him climbing into the building through a gym window.
“My first thought was, ‘Boy, you think you’re something!'” Ruth Ann Trobe said. “I soon found out he was.”
He asked her to a movie — “Lawrence of Arabia” — at the Circle Theatre.
They married in 1963.
“Alan loved deeply,” Ruth Ann Trobe said. “If you were lucky to be loved by him, it was forever and a day. You loved Al unconditionally, that is what drew you to him.”
The couple was tested early on in their marriage. While Ruth Ann Trobe was pregnant with Dawn, their first child, they got into a car wreck that left them uncertain if she or their unborn daughter would survive, but they fought through.
“I was very thankful to have had family during this time,” Ruth Ann Trobe said. “I believe it made Al and I know how precious life and loves are.”
Alan Trobe was employed at Detroit Diesel-Allison in Indianapolis as a grinder operator working on jet engines, and then Chevrolet Truck and Bus. At Detroit Diesel-Allison, he served many years as a committeeman for United Auto Workers Local 933 and remained a member of the union until his death.
“He was the kind of father you knew would be there if you needed him,” Hamilton said. “He would drive the pickup truck for my brothers and I to deliver five newspaper routes on Sunday mornings. He would pop popcorn on the stove and put it in a paper bag before we headed out to the drive-in movie in our Pontiac convertible. That same convertible would drive us to pick up pizza from Sam’s on Shadeland Avenue where we would sit and watch Sam toss the pizza dough in the window.”
Alan Trobe enjoyed playing board and card games. He took his kids rollerskating, bowling and to sporting events. He liked to fly kites and play catch, miniature golf and pool. Hamilton recalled him and her mother going door to door registering people to vote and working the polls on election days. She remembers his big-dimpled smile when he hit a royal flush in Las Vegas, their family trips together and holding his grandchildren and great-grandchildren for the first time.
“Dad could let you know he wasn’t happy about something you did, just by giving you a look,” Hamilton said. “He expected you to do what was right. He loved to tease those close to him. He was always there if you needed a hug, and generous with anything he had.”
Hamilton said she’s going to remember all of the hands of all of the family members he held throughout his life.
“Mostly though, I remember him holding my mom’s hand,” she said. “Every day, as though they were just starting their life together, even though that was long ago.”
When thinking of her grandfather, the first attribute that comes to Roberts’ mind is “no nonsense.”
“When Grandpa was ready to go, you needed to be, too!” she said. “But he always waited for my grandmother. And I always felt like he waited for me, too.”
He could be just as silly as he was no-nonsense, though. Roberts remembers one family vacation to Florida during which they had to evacuate due to an approaching hurricane. They packed up and drove across the state to a different hotel to get out of the storm’s path.
“When a knock came at the door, we expected a quick invite to head out for dinner, but instead found my grandpa barging into our room with one of the hotel shower caps on his head, telling us the hurricane was coming to get him,” Roberts said.
Roberts won’t forget his playful teasing, the way he’d channel Jack Nicholson from a scene in “As Good as It Gets,” or how he’d always share his dessert with her and his wife at one of their Florida vacation haunts.
Teaching by example
Alan Trobe, who dropped out of high school to help support his mother, taught by example the importance of taking care of family.
“He taught us to do things for people without expecting anything in return,” Hamilton said. “He taught us that what others think of you, doesn’t matter. That you don’t change who you are or how you present yourself to fit in with those who are around you. Loyalty matters, your word matters; no games, just be straight forward.”
His father was not part of his life.
“He learned how to be a man, husband, father, and grandfather by just living it,” Hamilton said. “He learned every day of his life. I’m not saying he was perfect. He made mistakes in life; we all do. We all wish we could have those do-overs. He knew that and made himself better because of it.”
The effect his father’s absence had on his mother and family had an impact on the kind of husband he wanted to be, Hamilton believes.
“He saw her struggles, how she was mistreated, and I think he made a choice early on that he would never do that to those he loved,” she said.
Hamilton said her parents never gave up on each other and always tried to settle disagreements before bedtime. They told one another they loved each other, hugged and kissed every day, and always held hands when they walked together.
Together they got through the loss of their son, Alan David Trobe, in 2010, and later that same year, Alan Noble Trobe’s prostate cancer diagnosis.
“Life threw good times, hardship and sorrow at them but they always faced their journey as a couple,” Hamilton said. “Except for COVID-19, that fight they had to face alone.”
A new home
Alan and Ruth Ann Trobe moved to Greenfield in 2014 from Indianapolis’ east side, right at the time Roberts and her husband were buying their first home in the Hancock County seat.
“When they moved to town, it was like they’d lived here all their lives — but that’s how they are,” Roberts said. “They come in and they’re right at home.”
Alan Trobe moved into Greenfield Healthcare Center in May 2019 with Lewy body dementia, which later left him unable to understand the events or circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ruth Ann Trobe remembers not getting to see her husband after the facility closed to visitors at the start of the pandemic. When it was allowed again a few months later, it could only be for minimal amounts of time and in areas selected by the facility.
“When the lock-down happened in March (2020), he couldn’t understand why they had to remain separate,” Roberts said. He kept motioning for my grandmother to come around so he could open the door for her.”
Hamilton said the separation accelerated his mental decline to the point where he no longer recognized her.
Difficult diagnosis
Alan Trobe had been getting tested for COVID-19 regularly, including after others tested positive in his unit. His family learned on Christmas Day that he had tested positive for the virus.
Greenfield Healthcare Center had experienced a COVID-19 outbreak that began in April and went into June, but hadn’t recorded a single case between June 16 and Dec. 12. The facility reported more cases over the days and weeks that followed as much of the U.S. experienced a predicted surge of the virus throughout the holiday season, but not to the extent of its initial outbreak.
According to the Indiana State Department of Health, Greenfield Healthcare Center has recorded 34 COVID-19 resident deaths, 120 cases and 34 employee cases throughout the pandemic.
Alan Trobe became quieter after contracting the virus, Hamilton said. Usually restless, up and moving around, now he stayed in bed and slept. He had trouble swallowing and didn’t want to eat or drink. Eventually a tube had to be placed in his stomach. His breathing became shallower, then labored. He had to wear an oxygen mask. At first, he wouldn’t leave it on; then, he didn’t have the strength to take it off. His blood oxygen levels would drop overnight while he slept, making him unresponsive until staff worked to return the levels. He received morphine to make him comfortable. His eyes sank in and dark circles developed around them.
Greenfield Healthcare Center staff helped his family set up video calls with him.
“Mom would talk to him, try to encourage him to fight, to listen to his helpers, and did what she has done since they said ‘I do,'” Hamilton said. “She told him she loved him. Each call became harder as his condition worsened.”
His family decided to keep him where his caretakers knew who he was, Hamilton said.
“Where his final days wouldn’t be disruptive and scarier than they already were,” she added. “Where his surroundings were familiar. Where his pictures, of four generations, surrounded him when we couldn’t be there.”
Roberts said the family knew a transfer would have caused even more stress to his already frail state.
“It didn’t make sense for him to go to the hospital and take up a bed of someone who might need it to survive,” Roberts said. “It was decided that the best course of action would be to make him comfortable.”
The family thought they’d lose him on New Year’s Day.
“He held on for a few more days, but we knew there was no coming out of his COVID diagnosis with happy news,” Roberts said.
Greenfield Healthcare Center called Ruth Ann Trobe at around 4 a.m. on Jan. 4, 2021, to let her know the end was near. She asked for a video call to see him one last time.
“She cried, she told him she loved him, she told him it was OK to go,” Hamilton said. “But she couldn’t hold him.”
In her video call, Hamilton couldn’t help but notice the man nicknamed “Big Al” all his life was frail and thin. There was confusion in his eyes, but maybe a glimmer of recognition.
“I’ll hold onto that, that hope that he knew who I was,” Hamilton said. “I told him I loved him, forever and a day. Threw him a kiss and told him goodbye.”
Alan Trobe died later that day — 10 days after his diagnosis — with no family able to be around him.
Along with Ruth Ann Trobe, Hamilton and Roberts, he was also survived by a son named Adam, seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Rights and lives
Five days after his death, a handful of of his family members were able to gather around him. He was later cremated.
No service was held in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, which at that time was spiking across the U.S. On the day Alan Trobe died, 82 other Hancock County residents had tested positive for the virus. Two days later, a pandemic high of 141 cases was recorded. A week later, the county recorded a pandemic high of five COVID-19 deaths in a single day.
Hamilton recalled when her husband picked up the death certificate from the funeral home, he was told many survivors of COVID-19 victims are surprised to learn the cause of death was the novel coronavirus.
“I do not understand this,” she said. “The denial of the seriousness of this virus, even when the reality of it is death. It’s just unfathomable to me.”
Hamilton and Roberts wish those who don’t take the pandemic seriously would change their view. Those who don’t follow precautions because they feel they’re being oppressed put themselves before those for whom the virus is devastating, they said.
“Why are their rights more important than my grandfather’s life?” Roberts said.
Hamilton said it’s important to care about others and what they mean to those who love them.
“They’re not expendable simply because they’re invisible to you,” she said. “Our husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather wasn’t just a number, he wasn’t invisible. Alan Trobe mattered. He was a part of our heart.”
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This story is part of a continuing series chronicling the lives of people we’ve lost during the pandemic. If you’d like to tell your loved one’s story in these pages, we’d be honored to participate in that journey with you. You can email us at [email protected]
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