Bob Vollmer of Brown County, seen here at age 102, turned in his keys on Feb. 6, 2020 as an Indiana Department of Natural Resources surveyor. He was the state’s oldest employee, and older than the DNR itself. He passed last week at the age of 104. He will be remembered for a long life of service to his community and country.
Submitted photo
Four years ago, Robert “Bob” Vollmer said that if there was any such thing as living a full life, he thought he had done it.
He served in the second World War as Chief Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy, graduated from Purdue University, built a home on a farm and worked for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources until he was 102.
Vollmer, Brown County’s oldest veteran and the state’s oldest employee, passed away on Jan. 12, 2022. He was 104 years old.
Keith Baker, commander of Nashville American Legion Post 13, often worked closely with Vollmer.
Baker said that Vollmer was not only a local, but a state and national treasure.
“Bob is one of the greatest patriots I have known,” Baker said. He described Vollmer as well-read and well-spoken, participating in hours long conversations until the very end of his life.
“Stories of his life, discussions in literature. Endless titles of military history,” Baker said.
“The term ‘hero’ is used today to describe many who served and sacrificed, but Bob Vollmer was the real deal.”
Life fully lived
Vollmer was born May 20, 1917, in Washington, Indiana. After attending school, he enlisted in the Navy and trained as a machine gunner, builder, bulldozer operator and electrical specialist.
Vollmer served with the U.S. Navy SeaBees, the naval construction force trained to operate construction equipment with one hand while firing a weapon with the other.
He was working for ADT in Detroit when Pearl Harbor happened.
He had worked as a troubleshooter prior to the attack and uncovered sabotage at an Oldsmobile plant in Lansing.
“They was going to disrupt the fire alarm system and burn the buildings down, because they was starting to make tanks for our buddies over there,” he told The Democrat in December of 2016.
He was among the group that took back the islands of Attu and Kiska in Alaskan territory from the Japanese Navy in 1942.
Caught in an avalanche while on his way to get the mail from a ship in Massacre Bay, he couldn’t see and could barely breathe, but he managed to slowly dig his way out hours later. He told the Democrat in 2013 he escaped by dropping a handful of snow to determine which way was up, he used gravity to point the way out.
Next, he went to the Philippines.
In 1943, his unit was deployed to the South Pacific in support of one of the first and bloodiest battles, Tarawa. It was in this battle that his brother, a U.S. Marine rifleman, lost his life in combat.
“If it hadn’t been for that, I would have probably re-enlisted,” he said in 2017. “They say the mothers are the ones who take the beatings. It’s not the guys like me; it’s the mothers. When a guy is dying, not always, but usually, they’re asking for mom. You can’t forget that.”
It was at the invasion of the Philippines in the Letye Gulf that Vollmer salvaged equipment and bailing wire to make generators and communications at the front. He was promoted to Chief Petty Officer for these efforts.
After the war, he married and settled on the West Coast. He was encouraged by his wife to take surveying courses at the University of California, Berkeley, but said he “didn’t like the old hippies out there.”
“Some professor said, ‘Vollmer, why don’t you go to one of those Big Ten schools?’ I said, ‘Where would you go?’ He said, ‘Why don’t you go to Purdue?’ I came back to Indiana then.”
Since he was married and his wife was expecting their first child, he couldn’t live in a dorm, so he bought land and built a house before the end of his last semester.
While attending Purdue, Vollmer took a summer job with the then-Department of Conservation, doing surveying. He eventually began working full-time building dams and doing surveying.
The first dam he built was the dam that formed Dogwood Lake in Montgomery. It was completed in 1965.
The Vollmer family — which by this time included three daughters and one son — moved to Martin County near Hindostan Falls, where they lived on farmland.
His first wife passed away from cancer, but Vollmer stayed in Martin County to raise his children.
“It was a tough job, but I got it done,” he said in 2017.
He moved to Brown County in 1994 and married his second wife, Katrina.
He was actively working for nearly 70 years as a surveyor the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, retiring in 2020 at the age of 102.
DNR honored Vollmer with an invitation-only retirement dinner party. Days before the retirement party, he had pie and coffee with Gov. Eric Holcomb and DNR Director Cameron Clark at the Abe Martin Lodge in the Brown County State Park.
“From his service to the country in World War II to his service to the people of Indiana, Bob exemplifies what it means to serve,” Clark said in 2020.
Vollmer started with the DNR as project engineer at Glendale Fish and Wildlife Area in 1963, and was older than the DNR itself — the agency turned 100 in 2019.
At his retirement, he held the title of chief surveyor. He attributed his success to help he received along the way.
To him, a good retirement meant staying active. He said in 2020 that he didn’t have “a reverse gear in (his) transmission.”
“You don’t want to quit — when you quit, you’re confined to the rocking chair, and that’s where you die. When I go down, I want to go down swingin’.”
On his 100th birthday, Vollmer said, “If there’s any such thing as living a full life. I think I’ve done it.”
‘Proud of my life’
At his 100th birthday celebration in 2017, Vollmer was asked about the secret to living a long life.
He raised his right hand and began to recite an oath. Not any military oath, but one he took as a child in Boy Scouts.
“’To help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.’ That’s what I do,” he said.
He likened himself to the Energizer Bunny, a character that “doesn’t quit.”
“That’s the way you won the war. You didn’t retreat. … If you retreated, you lost,” he said.
“I am proud of my life. I don’t quit until I get it done.”
Along with living his life by the Boy Scout oath, Vollmer credited his long life to his parents. His mother always made sure he ate a balanced meal when he was growing up.
It was not odd for Vollmer to live well past a century. His mother, Anna Francis Vollmer, lived to 108.
Following his passing, state officials and members of the local community recognized Vollmer and his years of dedication in various roles.
Holcomb expressed gratefulness for the veteran on Twitter after hearing of Vollmer’s passing.
“Bob gave a lifetime to serving Hoosiers and we’re all better for it. I’m so thankful for him and the way he carried himself day in and day out,” he said.
“If you ever had the chance to spend time with him and hear the adventures of a life well-lived, you will carry those special memories for a lifetime. Our prayers and thoughts are with his family in the coming days,” DNR Director Dan Bortner said on Twitter last week.
Ron Higgins is the district state service officer with the Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs for the southeast region. Before that he served as the service officer at the Brown County Veterans Affairs Office.
During his time as the county’s veteran’s service officer, Higgins gathered a fair share of memories with Vollmer.
One that stuck out to him when reflecting on his passing was attending a funeral in 2013 for a local woman’s great uncle, a WWII veteran whose body had been recovered on the island of Tarawa — where Vollmer fought 70 years prior.
Come to find out, Vollmer assisted in the burial of soldiers who lost their lives on the island, and assisted officials in finding where un-recovered bodies were on Tarawa.
He and other soldiers who fought there buried soldiers after the battle, their graves marked by a rifle, helmet and dog tags so they could later be identified.
“(Vollmer) was very knowledgeable, had a great sense of humor. He could turn anything to humor,” Higgins said. “He was a really fun guy to be around. I love that guy.”
Current Brown County Veterans Service Officer Chris Snell said he first heard of Vollmer when his retirement from DNR was announced.
Since then, he had a memorable time getting to know the WWII vet. He said Vollmer had a great impact on the community.
“He was enthusiastic about his life and a hard worker. He proved that to everybody,” he said. “In retirement said he still had things to do. A hard working man.”
Baker spent many years as Vollmer’s friend and said he will miss him incredibly.
“He stormed beaches in the South Pacific and fought in the icy cold of the Aleutians,” Baker said. “I will miss Bob Vollmer more than anyone. The veterans of Brown County have lost a good man.”
His own family remembers him as a gifted storyteller who was kind, generous and fun.
“He’s always been my hero, since I was a little girl,” his daughter Theresa Spurgeon said. “Basically to us, he was ‘daddy.’”
Spurgeon relocated to Indianapolis from Florida last year to be closer to her father.
He always encouraged learning to his family. Great lessons Spurgeon took away were to be honest, keep on going through difficult times and to have a sense of humor.
“That’s important to our family, to have a sense of humor. You can’t take things too seriously,” she said last week.
Spurgeon also read the Boy Scout oath when talking about how her father lived his entire century-long life.
“’To help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight,’” She said before pausing.
“That first line — he exemplified all those things.”
