While watching his favorite movie, as if in solidarity with the guys on the Notre Dame football team, James Fenstermacher could be heard chanting “Ru-dy! Ru-dy! Ru-dy!”
“Like Rudy, my father kept up the good fight against his illness, long after peers would have given in,” said Dustin Fenstermacher, of Philadelphia. “I guess he and Rudy ignored the odds and did their best given their physical limitations.”
James R. Fenstermacher, 58, of Trevorton, passed away May 15 due to Lou Gehrig’s disease.
A tagline for “Rudy” was, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” “Dad lived that idea every day of his life, not just at the end,” said daughter Tara Fenstermacher, of Sunbury.
Watching her husband go from total independence to total dependence was difficult for Jim’s wife, Karen. The couple would have been married 37 years on July 8.
“He couldn’t do the things we all take for granted. He was a prisoner in his own body,” she said. “Cutting his nails, brushing his teeth, blowing his nose — Jim needed help with so many things.”
Jim was a Navy veteran, and Karen credits the Veterans Administration for helping with medical equipment, a hospital bed-lift, ramps, adapted utensils and anything else he needed.
Jim was passionate about hunting and the outdoors. “He’d brave all sorts of weather to sit in his spot for hours on end just waiting for that one shot that would bag him a big buck,” Tara said.
“Sure he hunted, but the joy wasn’t purely derived from the thrill of the hunt,” Dustin said. “Mostly, it was from observing the natural world, seeing the beauty in what most of us take for granted.”
“Jim felt closer to God in the outdoors,” Karen added.
One memory Dustin cherishes was when he and his father obtained their black belts while studying Isshinryu from Carl Clark, of Elysburg.
“Dad overcame age and physical deficiencies to attain a rank in karate so few people truly deserve to earn,” Dustin said. “We were the first father-son duo to get our black belts at the same time.”
Dustin said his father may not have been the most graceful of men, but he had the persistence and fortitude to overcome anything in his path.
“Carl always said Dad had ‘the strength of 10 men,’ ” Tara recalled. “I know Carl was talking about Dad’s physical strength, but having witnessed what my father had to endure, I like to think Carl was also talking about Dad’s heart.”
Those who ran into Jim in the community knew what a talker he was. “He’d talk your ear off,” Tara said. “Be it story telling, ranting about how the Dodgers, Colts or Nittany Lions were doing, or talking about hunting, the possibilities were endless.”
Jim was a 1968 graduate of Shikellamy High School and a 1975 graduate of Wilkes-Barre Business College. He was employed as an accountant at the Northumberland County Home from 1975-77, as a Class Cabinet maker at Young Door from 1977-95 and as a state correctional officer from 1995-2006.
n Passings is an interview with friends and family who recently lost a loved one. The stories run on Wednesdays.
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