Monroeville WWII veteran dies at 99, remembered as 'beautiful,' 'smart'

Frances Brumback always looked beautiful.

When she and her daughter, Carol, would go out together, they would often be mistaken for sisters.

“But she never would correct anyone,” said Carol Brumback. “She didn’t want anyone to feel bad. That’s just the way she was.”

Frances Brumback, a longtime resident of Monroeville and one of the oldest living World War II veterans, died Nov. 16. She was 99.

Carol, a 70-year-old Gateway graduate, stayed by her mother until the very end. Around five years ago, she commuted from her home in Maryland as often as three times a week to take care of her mother. The two have always been close, she said.

Carol said she eventually left her job as a nurse to move in with her mother for a time at her apartment. She then found an assisted living facility for her mother and continued working as a medical assistant in Maryland.

“I wanted her to move with me to Maryland,” Carol said. “But she wanted to stay in Monroeville. She liked it here.”

Before moving to Monroeville, Frances served in the military from 1944 to 1946. She began her career as a seaman on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts before moving on to Washington, D.C.’s Navy Yard as a storekeeper, second class. In that role, she served as a communications liaison between the White House and the Coast Guard.

She met her husband, the late Oscar Benjamin Brumback, at a United Service Organizations dance in 1947, the same year they married while living in Washington, D.C. At the time, Oscar Brumback was enrolled at Georgetown University School of Law. He earned his Juris Doctor degree in 1951.

From there, the couple moved to New Jersey, where he worked as a patent attorney for Bendix Aviation. Five years later, in 1956, he got a new job as a patent attorney at Koppers Co. in Pittsburgh. The couple lived in Monroeville, where they put down roots and raised four children.

Frances’ husband retired in 1983 and died in 2009 at the age of 89, according to his obituary.

While living in Monroeville, Frances volunteered at Forbes Hospital, the Monroeville Public Library and with several other community organizations. The couple traveled frequently, prompting them both to become fluent in French and Spanish.

“She was so smart,” Carol said.

She enjoyed rooting for any Pittsburgh team, golfing, bowling and playing bridge.

Frances also loved parades. Carol said she took her mother to many parades, in Pittsburgh and beyond, over the years. She even participated in many of them. The last major parade she participated in was Washington D.C.’s Memorial Day Parade in 2018.

That was the same year that the Arlington, Va.-based American Veterans Center captured an oral history from Frances Brumback for a film the organization produced. The organization provided her a vintage convertible car to escort her in the parade.

Frances, 97, at the time, was also recognized as a female veteran during the National Memorial Day Concert, held the same weekend at the Capitol. A portion of the concert honored women who responded to legislation that enabled them to serve in the military – which in her case was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s establishment of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in 1942.

Carol Brumback said she is crushed by her mother’s death, partly because she died just five days before her 100th birthday.

“We would have been able to celebrate her 100^th birthday and done a drive-by type thing,” she said, referencing covid-19 restrictions at assisted living facilities and hospitals.

But she was at least able to be with Frances when she died.

“I felt a sense of happiness within her. I knew that,” Carol Brumback said. “I was in the hospital with her. … I just wrapped my arms around her. And she just had a smile on her face.”