It was July 1967, another sultry Delaware summer. While I’m sure there were fun times (it was summer vacation after all), I can only remember heat, humidity, and a deep sadness that paralyzed my soul. Another memory is of the riots in cities across the US that I watched on the news from my safe and peaceful suburban home.

My father Richard E. Ashwill was in the hospital in Wilmington suffering from terminal lung and brain cancer only to be released in a casket. I remember visiting him for a short time in the ICU wondering – as a child would – when he could go home. He breathed his last on the evening of July 31st.

Two weeks earlier, up the road from where we lived, the father of a classmate, Steve Grubb, made the decision to end his life in his garage via carbon monoxide poisoning, a highly effective and popular way to commit suicide. His wife Anne and their four children were visiting the former’s brother in Florida.

Preston R. Grubb was found at 10:30 a.m. on the 15th. He closed the garage door, connected the hose to the exhaust pipe, started the car, and waited. Carbon monoxide poisoning is predictable. Headache, dizziness, and nausea set in within five to ten minutes followed by unconsciousness, convulsions, cardiorespiratory failure, coma, and death within a half hour. It is a painless way to die. (The title of the article on the left is accurate but misleading. Yes, the car exhaust fumes killed him but it was by design, i.e., he killed himself via CO poisoning.)

The death of our fathers was one of the things Steve and I had in common aside from our age (nine) and the fact that we attended the same elementary, junior high, and high schools. I always felt Steve bore a much greater burden because his father chose to die at the age of 39 while mine had no choice at 42. Same end result but drastically different circumstances and emotional baggage.

This family tragedy was my first experience, albeit from a distance, with suicide. As a sensitive child who lost his father at a tender age, it haunted me then and still does 57 years after the fact. It was then I began to realize that those who end their lives are not selfish but in so much pain and despair that they see no other way out. They have no hope and view death as a merciful end to their psychic suffering. I drive by the Grubbs’ old house on Grubb Road during my annual trips to Delaware and think of how Mr. Grubb chose to end his life.

Sadly, Steve Grubb passed away earlier this year at the age of 66. I regret not reaching out to him. It was not the first time I waited too long. He’s buried in Gracelawn Memorial Park in New Castle, DE, a cemetery I visit every year to pay my respects to my stepfather who passed away in 2021 at the ripe old age of 98, and sister, brother-in-law, and nephew who died in an auto accident in 2009. Alison was 50, her husband Brett 46, and their son Jimmy about to turn 13.

Postscript: The Grubbs were one of the original families of what became the colony of Delaware. The patriarch was John Grubb (1652-1708), a Quaker who emigrated from England in 1677 on the Kent, the first ship of settlers organized by William Penn. The Grubb Family Iron Dynasty was a succession of iron manufacturing enterprises owned and operated by Grubb family members for more than 165 years. Fun fact: John’s father Henry Grubb Jr. (1617–1677) is a paternal 3rd cousin 11 times removed.

Peace, MAA