Thomas Brent Daeuble

Thomas Brent Daeuble of Austin died Sunday, May 24, 2020, following a valiant and painful struggle with cancer. He was 72. Born July 23, 1947 in El Paso, Brent grew up in various U.S. cities as his father's career as a Ford Motor Company executive took the family to Henryetta and Oklahoma City, OK; Ridgewood, NJ; Ann Arbor, MI; and Dallas. He attended high school in Ann Arbor and later Dallas, graduating there in 1965 from Thomas Jefferson High. He majored in German and comparative literature at Southern Methodist University, where he was assistant to renowned author and historian Lon Tinkle. As a student, Brent wrote book reviews for the Dallas Morning News and won the Goethe Award. He graduated with honors. Kluger Mann!

Moving to Austin in 1969, he taught at Del Valle High and attended graduate school in German at the University of Texas, where he was a teaching assistant. He then worked at Texas Educational Consulting Services writing Title I grants for needy Texas school districts and served for 16 years as the marketing and public relations director at the Austin Board of Realtors.

In the mid-1990s, Brent returned to his love of teaching German and was on the faculties of Dobie Middle School, The Waldorf School, and Kirby Hall School. "Herr Daeuble" was a beloved instructor. With the 2000s, Brent became a full-time translator with clients in the United States and Germany, working on such diverse topics as mythology, finance, travel, art and fiction. He was the consummate language scholar: his verbal fluency surprised even Germans, who assumed he was from Germany. He was a voracious reader of German popular literature, befriending best-selling authors. He listened daily to ARD German TV news.

Brent loved his family. He was a steadfast and devoted son and brother, and was loyal to his friends, who he also considered family. He disliked vanity, egotism and blowhards. He was a gentle soul and a gentleman. He usually sided with underdogs and always picked the runt of any litter. To the end of his days he paid attention and much time to those sometimes forgotten, especially the sick and the elderly. More than once, he gave his socks to barefoot panhandlers standing on hot pavements. He loved all dogs, the Democratic Party, tracing his German & Irish genealogy, Europe, wildflowers, Night Hawk restaurant food, and wry humor. He was one of the few you'll know who pronounced February correctly. And he was the ideal mate. Gott sei Dank.

Brent was predeceased by his parents, Mariellen "Peggy" Brown Daeuble and Thomas Arthur Daeuble of El Paso. He is survived by his partner of 46 years, Joseph Hammer; his sister, Dorothy Lynne "Cissy" Daeuble of Destin, FL; his niece, Colleen Lowe Aki (Kevin) of Santa Rosa Beach, FL; his nephew, Thomas Neal Smith (Kristin) of Enterprise, Alabama; several great and great-great nieces and nephews; and a host of friends from throughout his lifetime who loved him dearly.

For those wishing to commemorate Brent's life, gifts of any size may be made to the Thomas Brent Daeuble Memorial Fund in German at the University of Texas at Austin School of Liberal Arts, c/o Justin Michalka, P.O. Box 7458, Austin, TX 78713. Gifts can also be made online at http://links.utexas.edu/cbnriya

A memorial service will be announced later this summer, when pandemic conditions have hopefully improved.

A life well lived. Ich liebe Dich. Immer, ewig, und von ganzem Herzen.