The obituary for R. F.
Albery
~Monday March 12, 1962~
SERVICES TUESDAY FOR UTILITY PIONEER
RICHARD F. ALBERY
COVINGTON - Services for
Richard F. Albery, 82, pioneer in the electric utility field and former village
and school official here, will be conducted at 2 p.m. Tuesday in the Routzahn
Funeral Home. The Rev. R. K. Higgins will officiate and burial will be in Sugar
Grove Cemetery. Mr. Albery died at 5:20 p.m. Friday at Miami Valley Hospital
from a cerebral hemorrhage suffered over a month ago. He was first hospitalized
at Piqua Memorial and later moved to the Dayton Hospital. A native of Covington,
he was born April 14, 1879, to Richard and Hannah Fowler Albery. His wife, the
former Margaret Crook, died in 1948. He was associated with electric light and
power utilities over 30 years. His family purchased the Falls Electric Company
at Greenville Falls in 1897 and, as general manager, he expanded electric
service to Covington and vicinity. In 1913 the company was sold to Buckeye Light
and Power. He continued as general superintendent and in 1921 started
construction of several hundred miles of rural electrification in the Stillwater
Valley. He retired in 1930. Mr. Albery served a term as mayor of the village
about 1910 and was a member and president of the Covington Board of Education
during two building programs. He was a director and president of the former
Stillwater Bank and a director of the old Dayton, Covington and Piqua Traction
line. He was a 60-year member of the Covington Masonic Lodge and 55-year member
of the Scottish Rite in Dayton. Since his retirement he has operated a farm near
Union City and built several small houses. Surviving are six children, three
sons, Richard, George and Max, all of Dayton; three daughters, Mrs. Alice
Conklin of Riverside, Calif; Mrs. Esther Hartzell of Tucson, Ariz., Maribelle
Albery of Covington, and several grandchildren. Friends may call at the funeral
home until the hour of services and Masonic services will be held there at 7:30
p.m. today. Following is a copy of the editorial upon the passing of R.M.
Albery. This was written by Hugh C. Marlin, Publisher of the Stillwater Valley
News, Covington, Ohio, January 4, 1928.
"THE KINDLIEST MAN I EVER MET"
Richard F. Albery has
passed on. I shall never forget him. While others will remember him for his
various activities, his honest manhood, and his pioneering which brought
electricity to Covington, I shall remember him for his quaint philosophy and his
unusual kindliness to me as a boy. When boyhood scenes flash their way across
the pages of memory, I shall never forget him as he stood in the sawmill with
his hand on the lever that controlled the great saw that ate its way through
mammoth logs, converting them into rafters and logs for capacious barns or snug
farm homes in our community. At such times he would let me ride on the carrier,
or play about the mill. The impression was always present there that someday I
would grow up and be a sawyer and be able to handle the saw and the carriage and
to read the chalk marks on the logs as he did. And when in the balmy spring days
he would put me astride one of the big gray horses and let me ride while
he walked behind the furrow, as he guided the plow, I had an over whelming
desire to become a farmer. Always when I was with him, he was telling quaint
stories and jokes and laughing with that kindly chuckle of his. In the mill he
told me the secrets of making a good grist and showed me how they grooved the
great stones between which the corn was ground. And would let me put the sacks
on the sacker, and show me how to hook them on so they would hold fast as the
grist fell in. On other days, when the snow was deep, he would sit beside the
crackling wood fire in the mill and tell of many wonderful experiences of his
boyhood and let me hold the tame coon on my lap, or he would let me stand beside
him at the forge while the sparks flew upward and he would shape marvelous
things from the red iron on the anvil. He would let me make boats and use his
carpenter tools, or sharpen my knife on his oilstone. And once when I was sick
he sent me the first pup that I have ever owned. He knew a boy's heart. He knew
how many melons a boy could eat and I always had my fill! He taught me how to
fish for sunfish, carp and bass, and told me how to swim and row a boat, and
where to get good bait. But the joy of it all would be in the twilight, when he
would take down his old "Fiddle" and play me "Home Sweet
Home." Without a hint of humor he would play it "off key" just as
solemnly as anyone ever played the great products of the Masters, but when that
was over he had chuckled a little and his fingers were "limbered up a
little", he would sit down for an hour and play the old heart-tugging tunes
of the past, so rapt in the music that tears came in his eyes and would
sometimes flow unheeded down his cheeks and I would resolve to become a great
violinist, and so apt a pupil was I, that today I still play "Home Sweet
Home" as he played it to me. My last conversation with him was in the old
Covington Mill and as we talked, he was hunting for a nest of kittens which the
mother cat had hid in a bin, and I can see him now as he stood in the door with
his arms full of kittens as I jumped in the car and drove away. Yes, I shall
remember him. He is enthroned in boyhood's hall of fame in my heart as the one
man who understands a boy's heart. Who never wearied of countless questions, who
never failed to thrill me by the numberless duties he was able to accomplish in
the daily routine of his life. Mr. Albery is gone; one of those sturdy,
hardworking pioneers; able to perform the work of a dozen different craftsmen; a
great contribution to one community, and if I dared to write the words that
shall be carved upon the stone that shall mark his last resting place I would
write "The Kindliest Man I Ever Met."