Victor Habieb Bassett
The Life and Death of a Very Good Man
April 21, 1920 - June 1, 2007
By Abe J. Bassett
Victor died alone without close family, as he had lived in his octogenarian years. I was the one family member with whom Victor felt comfortable. We had maintained a relationship over the years by writing, telephoning and emailing. I wrote this account of some of his history and his last days to send to those family members who knew him or knew of him. It was my way to preserve the life and memory of a very interesting man.
The editors of Buckeye, the Napoleon High school annual of 1938 were perspicacious in their description of Victor Habib Bassett, my first cousin. An “intellectual giant” they wrote, associating him with the term “cogito ergo sum” [“I think, therefore I am”] and identifying him as a young person interested in philosophy and abstract thought. “In reading,” they wrote, he was “as voracious as a shark,” and “with a glint of iron in his eyes, but never doubt, nor yet surprise.”Victor’s yearbook picture reinforces this description, particularly as he was the only male in the graduating class of 84 students to wear glasses. The greatest insight in that brief yearbook description was the last seven words attributed to Victor: “why should life all labor be.”
Vic once told me that his real life began at five o’clock in the afternoon, when the workday was done and the paycheck earned, it was time to grow by pursuing one’s special interests. Never married, and with no family obligation was able to pursue a great variety of interests. He could not be labeled a dilettante because his devotion to his many interests was measured in years.
Victor’s main life’s work was with the Department of Defense, first beginning government service at Wright Patterson Air Force Base as an “Industrial Specialist” from 1951 to 1955, before taking a position with the Bureau of Naval Weapons as an Aircraft Cost Estimator (1955-1962) and then to the Institute of Defense Analyses as a Cost Analyst until retirement.
Because he applied for a “Top Secret” clearance, he left in his personal files a detailed history of where he lived, where he worked, and where he went to school. Once he spent a night in jail in Columbus, Ohio for driving 30 M.P.H. in a 25 M.P.H. zone! Through out his life he was a meticulous record keeper and list maker. He left a series of day planners even for the last seven years of his life, although many days carried the notation, “nothing happened.”
Between graduating from high school in 1938 and entering Ohio State in 1942, he had a variety of jobs including a “tool room apprentice,” a “lathe hand,” and a “tool designer.” He first majored in Industrial Design but this major did not suit him well and after one year entered the US Army as a private. After basic training he was recommended for OCS---Officer Candidate School---becoming a second lieutenant and serving in the Philippines in the Army Air Corp.
After military service from 1943 to 1946, he reentered Ohio State University, majoring in Psychology as preparation for a career in personnel work. He was supported in school by the GI Bill, but also had a series of temporary jobs including a “Photostat Operator” for Schiff Shoe, and a “Ward Attendant" for the Bureau of Juvenile Research in Columbus. He graduated in 1949 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
During the next two years, before gaining employment at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, he held a variety of temporary or short term positions including "Auto Assembler" for Chrysler in Detroit; an “interviewer” for the Ohio State Employment Service in Toledo, a “game operator” at Coney Island, and for a Radio Amusement Company in New York he “made change.”
Victor associated himself with a number of amateur theatres starting with the Springfield Ohio Civic Theatre, and later in Washington, D.C., with the Unitarian Players and Theatre Lobby. Victor was a life long stutterer, and while many people who stutter are able to speak memorized lines without revealing their malady, there is no evidence he performed on stage. He did however, become a member of the Toastmasters. I learned of his interest in theatre in the 1950's when we both lived in Columbus and would travel to Yellow Springs to see plays at the Antioch Shakespeare Festival.
After six years in community theatre Victor’s interests turned to genealogy, oil painting, photography, creative writing, mountaineering, and shooting. He became a knife collector and a gun collector and was a long time member of the National Rifle Association. He learned computer programming and as an avocation wrote programs for moving screen savers. For more than 35 years he was interested in astrology and created hundreds of astrological charts for family members, friends, politicians, entertainers and celebrities.
Besides the NRA, Victor was a Mason, and a member of the Theosophical Society. In his last months he subscribed to Time Magazine, The New Yorker Magazine, and PC Digest. He did his own taxes, owned and drove a car. He lived alone in an apartment complex near the Pentagon, where he cooked for himself. He moved about the apartment with the aid of a walker and found that a wheel chair was the most convenient and comfortable way to sit.
I had visited Vic several times when I had business in Washington and we periodically talked on the telephone. He was a source of family history, having interviewed many of his father’s generation in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Together, we were able to create stories for family members.
In Victor’s octogenarian years, his health problems were frequent and severe. He suffered two heart attacks, and two strokes; he had a prostate operation and a knee replacement. On December 5, 2006 Victor telephoned me. His voice was raspy, shaky and his speech was hesitant, as if he found it difficult to say what was on his mind. He said that at age 86 he is slowing down, and losing his sense of balance. He is considering going into a home. I asked if he wanted me to come to Arlington and he said yes. I made arrangements to leave in two days, but Victor called on the next day and said that my astrological signs were not favorable for travel and I should delay the trip. It turned out that my travel day was a day of heavy snow with icy conditions in the mountains.
I did make the trip in January and brought back with me some of his drawings and paintings, photographs and negatives. We talked about finding a home in the Dayton area and listed the things that needed to be accomplished to make the move possible. The tentative date was set for the end of April after I returned from a five-week trip to Europe. Victor began paring down his possessions, but the task was overwhelming, even with the help of Hilda Bowden, his long serving housekeeper. When I came to Arlington in April I worked with Victor to shed possessions of lesser value, making many trips down the hall to the refuse chute. The last 24 hours before the movers came were extremely tense. Victor came to realize that he could not go through his papers and possessions one item at a time. It was time to let go of papers and possessions that had been a lifetime accumulation. This was very stressful, but the movers came on time, packing up those items that would go with us to Ohio.
The one-day drive On April 30 from Arlington, Virginia to One Lincoln Park (OLP) in Kettering, Ohio was very pleasant. Victor was at ease, pleased to be traveling, and we chatted about many things: family history and stories, philosophy and religion, and matter-of-factly, death and dying. The one book he brought with in the automobile was a book on Theosophy. He said that he did not fear dying and that when death came, he would go to sleep and his spirit would leave his body. It would be a peaceful transition. He also said that he was ready to leave this world to which I took exception saying the next three years of his life would be pleasant.
The spirit of relaxation that was manifest during the drive disappeared as we moved into the Lincoln Park apartment. I spent a great deal of time running errands to make the apartment comfortable and livable. I arranged with the Lincoln Park staff to make an appointment with a geriatric physician, but May 16 was the first available date. I compiled, from Victor's records, his medical and medication history. Victor irritated the OLP staff by making too many requests. I knew the move would be stressful, but not to the degree he exhibited. I expected that within a month or so, as he settled in and met other residents, he would be happy in his new abode. And indeed, he related to me that the other residents he had met in the dinning room were very friendly, indeed, friendlier than the staff.
On the 16th of April, the OLP driver took Victor to Dr. Tamara Togliatti, but the medical records Victor and I had filled out together had not been delivered. The doctor found she was unable to make any diagnosis at that time as Victor was not articulate on this day and could not answer her questions. Another appointment was made for the following month.
Sometime on that day, April 16, Victor suffered a stroke, and whether it was before leaving OLP, or in the doctor’s office, or afterwards, I don’t know. That evening at 9:00 p.m., I received a call from the OLP desk requesting my assistance because Victor kept making requests they felt they could not honor. I came and took Victor for an automobile ride, which he found to be relaxing. I visited again on Thursday, but not on Friday as Sharon and I were preparing for a dinner party at our house.
At 3:45 p.m., on that Friday, the director of OLP telephoned saying that I must find a “temporary weekend” place for Victor because OLP did not have the staff to take care of him. She faxed a list of places that accept “Alzheimer patients.” She admitted that Victor might not be readmitted to OLP. I told her it would be impossible for me to make any arrangement with such a short notice. We ended up hiring a special attendant at $20 per hour to stay with Victor until arrangements could be made. The next day, on Saturday, we took him to the Hospital Emergency room at Kettering Memorial Hospital. A CAT scan revealed a “cerebral hemorrhage”. He was placed in intensive care where they attempted to stabilize his very high blood pressure. After three days in intensive care he was moved to a regular ward. The doctors determined that he needed a feeding tube, which if installed would permit Victor to be discharged to a nursing home.
On April 23 Victor was moved to Trinity Nursing Care in Beavercreek, a five-minute drive from my house. He was still able to respond to me and say my name, but he was sleeping more and more and was clearly losing vitality. “Hi, Vic”, I would say, “Who am I?” and he would reply in a faint voice, “Abie.” On Wednesday, Trinity had called to say that he had fallen out of his bed. On Friday, June 1, I received a call at 7:30 a.m. telling me that Victor’s vital signs were failing. My daughter and I arrived at Trinity at 7:55. “Hello Vic, it’s me, it's Abe; can you hear me?” No response. At 8:00, my daughter noted that Vic was not breathing.
Victor passed away precisely as he said he would. Peacefully. The spirit left the body. I wondered if my greeting “Hello Vic, it’s me, it’s Abe” was permission to pass on to the next realm.
A number of people have commended me for becoming involved in Victor’s life, but it never occurred to me to do other wise. Victor’s brother Dewey, with whom I had a close relationship, had helped our dear Uncle Frank in his last years, eventually bringing Frank to Ohio, where he passed away. It was only fitting to be involved with Victor as Dewey was with Frank.
Note -
Victor is the son of Moses Bassett (Nov 15, 1880 - June 18, 1964) and Hicebee Bassett Bassett (April 15, 1893 - March 1, 1974)
A Bassett married a Bassett. There were not first or second cousins, but maybe third or fourth.
The Life and Death of a Very Good Man
April 21, 1920 - June 1, 2007
By Abe J. Bassett
Victor died alone without close family, as he had lived in his octogenarian years. I was the one family member with whom Victor felt comfortable. We had maintained a relationship over the years by writing, telephoning and emailing. I wrote this account of some of his history and his last days to send to those family members who knew him or knew of him. It was my way to preserve the life and memory of a very interesting man.
The editors of Buckeye, the Napoleon High school annual of 1938 were perspicacious in their description of Victor Habib Bassett, my first cousin. An “intellectual giant” they wrote, associating him with the term “cogito ergo sum” [“I think, therefore I am”] and identifying him as a young person interested in philosophy and abstract thought. “In reading,” they wrote, he was “as voracious as a shark,” and “with a glint of iron in his eyes, but never doubt, nor yet surprise.”Victor’s yearbook picture reinforces this description, particularly as he was the only male in the graduating class of 84 students to wear glasses. The greatest insight in that brief yearbook description was the last seven words attributed to Victor: “why should life all labor be.”
Vic once told me that his real life began at five o’clock in the afternoon, when the workday was done and the paycheck earned, it was time to grow by pursuing one’s special interests. Never married, and with no family obligation was able to pursue a great variety of interests. He could not be labeled a dilettante because his devotion to his many interests was measured in years.
Victor’s main life’s work was with the Department of Defense, first beginning government service at Wright Patterson Air Force Base as an “Industrial Specialist” from 1951 to 1955, before taking a position with the Bureau of Naval Weapons as an Aircraft Cost Estimator (1955-1962) and then to the Institute of Defense Analyses as a Cost Analyst until retirement.
Because he applied for a “Top Secret” clearance, he left in his personal files a detailed history of where he lived, where he worked, and where he went to school. Once he spent a night in jail in Columbus, Ohio for driving 30 M.P.H. in a 25 M.P.H. zone! Through out his life he was a meticulous record keeper and list maker. He left a series of day planners even for the last seven years of his life, although many days carried the notation, “nothing happened.”
Between graduating from high school in 1938 and entering Ohio State in 1942, he had a variety of jobs including a “tool room apprentice,” a “lathe hand,” and a “tool designer.” He first majored in Industrial Design but this major did not suit him well and after one year entered the US Army as a private. After basic training he was recommended for OCS---Officer Candidate School---becoming a second lieutenant and serving in the Philippines in the Army Air Corp.
After military service from 1943 to 1946, he reentered Ohio State University, majoring in Psychology as preparation for a career in personnel work. He was supported in school by the GI Bill, but also had a series of temporary jobs including a “Photostat Operator” for Schiff Shoe, and a “Ward Attendant" for the Bureau of Juvenile Research in Columbus. He graduated in 1949 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
During the next two years, before gaining employment at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, he held a variety of temporary or short term positions including "Auto Assembler" for Chrysler in Detroit; an “interviewer” for the Ohio State Employment Service in Toledo, a “game operator” at Coney Island, and for a Radio Amusement Company in New York he “made change.”
Victor associated himself with a number of amateur theatres starting with the Springfield Ohio Civic Theatre, and later in Washington, D.C., with the Unitarian Players and Theatre Lobby. Victor was a life long stutterer, and while many people who stutter are able to speak memorized lines without revealing their malady, there is no evidence he performed on stage. He did however, become a member of the Toastmasters. I learned of his interest in theatre in the 1950's when we both lived in Columbus and would travel to Yellow Springs to see plays at the Antioch Shakespeare Festival.
After six years in community theatre Victor’s interests turned to genealogy, oil painting, photography, creative writing, mountaineering, and shooting. He became a knife collector and a gun collector and was a long time member of the National Rifle Association. He learned computer programming and as an avocation wrote programs for moving screen savers. For more than 35 years he was interested in astrology and created hundreds of astrological charts for family members, friends, politicians, entertainers and celebrities.
Besides the NRA, Victor was a Mason, and a member of the Theosophical Society. In his last months he subscribed to Time Magazine, The New Yorker Magazine, and PC Digest. He did his own taxes, owned and drove a car. He lived alone in an apartment complex near the Pentagon, where he cooked for himself. He moved about the apartment with the aid of a walker and found that a wheel chair was the most convenient and comfortable way to sit.
I had visited Vic several times when I had business in Washington and we periodically talked on the telephone. He was a source of family history, having interviewed many of his father’s generation in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Together, we were able to create stories for family members.
In Victor’s octogenarian years, his health problems were frequent and severe. He suffered two heart attacks, and two strokes; he had a prostate operation and a knee replacement. On December 5, 2006 Victor telephoned me. His voice was raspy, shaky and his speech was hesitant, as if he found it difficult to say what was on his mind. He said that at age 86 he is slowing down, and losing his sense of balance. He is considering going into a home. I asked if he wanted me to come to Arlington and he said yes. I made arrangements to leave in two days, but Victor called on the next day and said that my astrological signs were not favorable for travel and I should delay the trip. It turned out that my travel day was a day of heavy snow with icy conditions in the mountains.
I did make the trip in January and brought back with me some of his drawings and paintings, photographs and negatives. We talked about finding a home in the Dayton area and listed the things that needed to be accomplished to make the move possible. The tentative date was set for the end of April after I returned from a five-week trip to Europe. Victor began paring down his possessions, but the task was overwhelming, even with the help of Hilda Bowden, his long serving housekeeper. When I came to Arlington in April I worked with Victor to shed possessions of lesser value, making many trips down the hall to the refuse chute. The last 24 hours before the movers came were extremely tense. Victor came to realize that he could not go through his papers and possessions one item at a time. It was time to let go of papers and possessions that had been a lifetime accumulation. This was very stressful, but the movers came on time, packing up those items that would go with us to Ohio.
The one-day drive On April 30 from Arlington, Virginia to One Lincoln Park (OLP) in Kettering, Ohio was very pleasant. Victor was at ease, pleased to be traveling, and we chatted about many things: family history and stories, philosophy and religion, and matter-of-factly, death and dying. The one book he brought with in the automobile was a book on Theosophy. He said that he did not fear dying and that when death came, he would go to sleep and his spirit would leave his body. It would be a peaceful transition. He also said that he was ready to leave this world to which I took exception saying the next three years of his life would be pleasant.
The spirit of relaxation that was manifest during the drive disappeared as we moved into the Lincoln Park apartment. I spent a great deal of time running errands to make the apartment comfortable and livable. I arranged with the Lincoln Park staff to make an appointment with a geriatric physician, but May 16 was the first available date. I compiled, from Victor's records, his medical and medication history. Victor irritated the OLP staff by making too many requests. I knew the move would be stressful, but not to the degree he exhibited. I expected that within a month or so, as he settled in and met other residents, he would be happy in his new abode. And indeed, he related to me that the other residents he had met in the dinning room were very friendly, indeed, friendlier than the staff.
On the 16th of April, the OLP driver took Victor to Dr. Tamara Togliatti, but the medical records Victor and I had filled out together had not been delivered. The doctor found she was unable to make any diagnosis at that time as Victor was not articulate on this day and could not answer her questions. Another appointment was made for the following month.
Sometime on that day, April 16, Victor suffered a stroke, and whether it was before leaving OLP, or in the doctor’s office, or afterwards, I don’t know. That evening at 9:00 p.m., I received a call from the OLP desk requesting my assistance because Victor kept making requests they felt they could not honor. I came and took Victor for an automobile ride, which he found to be relaxing. I visited again on Thursday, but not on Friday as Sharon and I were preparing for a dinner party at our house.
At 3:45 p.m., on that Friday, the director of OLP telephoned saying that I must find a “temporary weekend” place for Victor because OLP did not have the staff to take care of him. She faxed a list of places that accept “Alzheimer patients.” She admitted that Victor might not be readmitted to OLP. I told her it would be impossible for me to make any arrangement with such a short notice. We ended up hiring a special attendant at $20 per hour to stay with Victor until arrangements could be made. The next day, on Saturday, we took him to the Hospital Emergency room at Kettering Memorial Hospital. A CAT scan revealed a “cerebral hemorrhage”. He was placed in intensive care where they attempted to stabilize his very high blood pressure. After three days in intensive care he was moved to a regular ward. The doctors determined that he needed a feeding tube, which if installed would permit Victor to be discharged to a nursing home.
On April 23 Victor was moved to Trinity Nursing Care in Beavercreek, a five-minute drive from my house. He was still able to respond to me and say my name, but he was sleeping more and more and was clearly losing vitality. “Hi, Vic”, I would say, “Who am I?” and he would reply in a faint voice, “Abie.” On Wednesday, Trinity had called to say that he had fallen out of his bed. On Friday, June 1, I received a call at 7:30 a.m. telling me that Victor’s vital signs were failing. My daughter and I arrived at Trinity at 7:55. “Hello Vic, it’s me, it's Abe; can you hear me?” No response. At 8:00, my daughter noted that Vic was not breathing.
Victor passed away precisely as he said he would. Peacefully. The spirit left the body. I wondered if my greeting “Hello Vic, it’s me, it’s Abe” was permission to pass on to the next realm.
A number of people have commended me for becoming involved in Victor’s life, but it never occurred to me to do other wise. Victor’s brother Dewey, with whom I had a close relationship, had helped our dear Uncle Frank in his last years, eventually bringing Frank to Ohio, where he passed away. It was only fitting to be involved with Victor as Dewey was with Frank.
Note -
Victor is the son of Moses Bassett (Nov 15, 1880 - June 18, 1964) and Hicebee Bassett Bassett (April 15, 1893 - March 1, 1974)
A Bassett married a Bassett. There were not first or second cousins, but maybe third or fourth.