Warren Stubblebine Obituary

My brother, Warren Stubblebine, Jr., was a very kind, gentle, and good man who had a wonderful and lasting impact on me. He took his role as my elder brother very seriously - so seriously, in fact, that after watching the video of my 2018 work retirement speech, he immediately pumped his fist and shouted: "I raised him right!" He taught me how to fish properly on trips to the Charles and Stop Rivers near our home in Medfield, Massachusetts, sometimes crossing cow fields, always with an eye out for bulls because once in Connecticut, he and his best friend Eddie Obrist got chased up a tree by a raging bull! One night on the Stop River, as darkness was overwhelming us, he caught a 2-and-a-half pound Largemouth Bass (very large for those parts) that I could see jumping two bends upriver before he reeled it in. Another night on the Charles, he motioned me to come over quietly because there was an 8 inch Brown Trout nosing around his boot foot - I very much wanted to catch it but he simply said it was too small, that it would not be good sport, and went back to casting for its bigger relatives while I pondered that a bit before going back to fishing - and soon realized it was a continuation of his training on being fair and doing the right thing (whether someone was watching or not!). We always followed those after-work (for him) trips by having Morton´s chicken pot pies and talking.

He was an expert fly fisherman - one day while touring the Blue Hole in Castalia, we came upon a member of the private trout club who rather pompously asked Warren if he´d like to try fly fishing and then watched my brother´s superb casting prowess, jaw dropped, mouth open, in pure envy. When we lived in North Haven, Connecticut, Warren had caught a 19-inch Brown Trout from diminutive Mill Creek, and his best friend´s father put him on tv and the front page of the local paper. Warren took me to see West Side Story when it premiered in downtown Boston, took me to two Red Sox - Yankee games in 1961 at Fenway Park where I saw Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, and who could forget Ryne Duren, as well as Roger Maris in his 61- homer year, and the implacable Yogi Berra. When I lived in Columbus, he would drive down on a Friday night, we´d go out for dinner, get up early and take both cars to the Mad River near Urbana and fish for trout. When I lived in Knoxville, he drove 12 hours to go fishing with me in the Tellico River in the Cherokee National Forest, and watched me catch the only fish of the trip, a 13 or 14" wild rainbow trout, nicknamed the wildcat trout for its strong fight. On another trip, most of our family came to visit when I was working at Air Force headquarters in DC and I took him out to the Shenandoah Park to fish Jeremy´s Run for brook trout: I didn´t realize we were starting at the source and had to walk down about 1500 feet of altitude to fish - the going down part was okay, but climbing back up another story completely - I had forgotten that he was smoking quite a bit back then! On the way back up, during one of many silent breaks, we encountered two white-tailed deer upwind of us that just kept their place, around 5 feet from us, then suddenly bounced off into the dense forest.

Warren was expert at identifying birds both by song and form - I learned to appreciate all kinds of wildlife from him. He was also a prolific reader and passed that joy on to me, most memorably by giving me T.H. White´s The Once and Future King, the basis for Disney´s wildly successful animated The Sword in the Stone. And he loved music, Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Sergio Menendez, and Joao Gilberto and Stan Getz with Astrid Gilberto on The Girl from Ipanema. He had exquisite taste in all things, particularly in courting and marrying Kathleen Millis, his loving wife of 57 years, who my best friend Gary Kessler, Gary´s mother June, and I were able to put together on a first date, and the rest is history. And even though he went to That School Up North, I still loved him, even on those relatively scarce days when the Maize and Blue won (counting from the year he first attended UM to the present, the Scarlet and Gray have won significantly more of The Games - 35 to 29 with 2 ties). We tried to have a bet on The Game once that required the loser to go in school colors to a bar of the winner´s choosing (The Varsity Club in Columbus or The Pretzel Bell in Ann Arbor) but only did that once as we both consumed a bit too much at the Varsity Club and instead of going trout fishing at 6:00 AM the next day, we struggled to get there by noon!
We had many, many fun excursions and exposures to nature and wildlife and Warren took the time to not only take me with him but teach and inspire me. He was a great brother and friend and I mourn his passing.

The picture with his obituary exudes his beautiful essence but my favorite, that I have carried with me all these many years, is sitting on a shelf in my office, right next to a glorious hand-blown Rainbow Trout (see below):

His note to me on his high school graduation photo was as follows:

"To Scottie, my favorite youngest brother, a little tyke who was always willing to learn something more and maybe to get into a little trouble. May your days be filled with lots of happiness, you really deserve the best.
Always, I hope, your favorite oldest brother. Good luck,
Warren"

Well, this little tyke has done all right, Brother, in significant part because of you. May you rest peacefully in eternity forever, bathed in an eternal golden light like this wonderful moment from Maui (see below):

As neighbors on Scottley Drive for many many years, we have memories of each other and our children. As a widow myself of nine years, grief never ends, but it changes. It's a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith. It is the price of love. Kathy, Kelly, David & Michael, my thoughts & prayers are with you...peace, blessings & love. Patty Pascoe

He was a very kind man. I knew him from Stein . He has a pleasant smile, good sense of humor &
was very hard working.He is with the Lord at peace . May the warm memories bring comfort during the days ahead.

So sad. Such a great kind and wonderful man. Sooo smart. I personally thought often about how lucky our company was to have him as a boss, manager and friend. RIP