I have one relatively clear memory of Bryan from about 1959 or 60, but I’m sure I must have known him before then. He was the oldest of the cousins and was married first, but he still must have spent enough time around the farm for me to get to know and recognize him.

Because I definitely knew who he was, even if I don’t have any concrete memories of him from my time on the farm.

My one specific memory of him is from when I was about ten or eleven. I can’t date it precisely but it was when my uncle Neal (on the Zellers side) and Fumiko and Kathy were living in Watertown, New York. I believe Neal had been sent there by the company he worked for. I don’t know the name of the company, but he worked for a computer company and every couple of years he was sent to a different location.

Anyway, my parents decided to visit them in Watertown for a weekend, so we drove up there (I think it was an eight hour car trip) by way of Endicott, New York, which was where Bryan Troutman and his family lived. We stopped in to see them, and as I said, I knew Bryan, and clearly he knew me. We probably were only there for an hour or so, just long enough to say hi and rest during the long drive, but Bryan made a fuss over me practically the whole time we were there.

By “fuss” I mean he was inundating me with questions. How I was doing in school? What I was studying? That sort of thing. I remember I found it rather surprising that he was taking such an interest in me.

And that was it. After my father had rested, we were off, on our way to Watertown, and that was the last I saw of Bryan except for funerals and events of that nature. We never had another chance to talk. Like the other Troutman cousins, after my grandparents died, I never saw him again.

This photo was probably taken around the same time as the one with Glenn and his children, so circa 1964. That’s my grandfather John Troutman, my uncle Clarence, and Bryan with the glasses. They are holding Bryan’s children Robert, Thomas, and Lisa.

I haven’t been able to find a birth date for Bryan, I just know that it was most likely in January of 1933.

Then there’s the matter of his name. Given that his brother Byrd was almost definitely named for Admiral Byrd and given the “Y” in the spelling of his name, I have to assume that Bryan was also named for someone in the news at that time. And the only person I can find who seems to fit is someone who died in 1925 but whose name had recently been in the newspapers again around the time that Clarence and Elsie’s first son was born. I hate to believe that Bryan was named for one of the biggest asses of the first part of the 20th century, but that’s the conclusion that I have to draw. I’d feel so much better if I knew that his father Clarence had been named after the man who became that big ass’s antagonist, but I have no reason to believe that to be the case.

Like his brothers, Bryan did very well in school, consistently making the honor rolls. At graduation he was the valedictorian. He was also one of the seniors selected to participate in an exercise in government; he was designated the “county detective”. He’s standing at the far right in the photo.

And then he was off to Penn State. (Interesting Fact: Wilbur Spangler, who would become Elco’s Mr. Spangler, the gym and driver ed teacher, was one year ahead of Bryan at Fredericksburg High School.)

Not only did he make the Dean’s List, but he also got engaged while at Penn State.

They were married in June 1953.

He was enrolled in the ROTC program and became Second Lieutenant Bryan Troutman in the Air Force and was stationed at Ellington Air Force Base in Texas. Before he left he was feted with a farewell dinner at our grandparents’ house on the farm and apparently my five year old self and my two week old sister attended. Oddly his brother Byrd is not listed as present. Oversight or was he perhaps ill?

A year later he was sent to Greenland. Where it’s cold. And he got to keep better. That might explain his long life. 

When he was discharged from the service, he went to work for IBM and settled in Endicott, New York, which is where we eventually went to see him. Oh, yes, he also earned a Master’s Degree.

And throughout this time his three children were born, Robert, Thomas, and Lisa.

Then he got involved in IBM’s space program and became manager of IBM’s Advanced Strategic Missile Programs and was eventually transferred to Maryland.

How come I didn’t know any of this?

I mean really, how come I didn’t know any of this?

His wife Vivian died in 1992.

After finding out that Stuart had died, I decided to search out Bryan who would be 91 by now.

Of course, you guessed it. Bryan died just a couple of years ago on March 5, 2022 aged 89. He was the longest lived of the sons of Clarence and Elsie.

Even more information can be found at his Tribute Archive.