Aubury Dewplea Bundy

Before you lies an extraordinary man, Aubury Deplew Bundy. Not perfect in any way, a man with idiosyncrasies for sure. He was born in 1931to Esther & Hobson Bundy in Troy, Alabama. The family were poor share croppers, & now with another mouth to feed during the Depression.

At ten years old, he was left with Aunt Zeph who died shortly afterward. Little Deplew loved Aunt Zeph & always thought his bad behavior caused her early demise. Deplew had a brother & cousin who heard of jobs up north in car factories in Detroit. So the three of them set out on motorcycles to go to the big city up north.

Somehow he wound up at Temple Baptist Church in their Career SS Class. The Yankees thought Deplew, Buren, & Cletus to be such odd names so they called them Dick, Pete, & Jack. Through the years, my dad got more mail to Richard than Aubury. That must have been an extraordinary motorcycle ride.

My dad’s new landlord in Detroit, Mr. Miller, may have been the reason the young men found Temple Baptist Church. Mr. Miller prayed with my dad & led him to the Lord in his home because true salvation is an intimate heart decision not a religious exercise.

When the Korean War broke out, the draft board looked everywhere for my dad in the South. When they finally found him in Detroit, they took him immediately into the Army. He served as a lineman, a phone operator, & a corpsman in Seoul, Korea. He was always proud of his service to this great country. He passed that along, that extraordinary love & loyalty. After seeing the horrors of war, he was anxious to get back to his church family. That’s where he met my mother, Reba Davis. They were married in 1954 in Garden City, Michigan. Not only did my dad take on a new bride, but he also got a six year old daughter in the deal. That was me! He stepped confidently into the two roles of husband & father. He was my daddy from the very start, & he was only twenty-four years old. And that was an extraordinary job for such a young man!

In the 1950’s after getting out of the service, he realized his dream of working in a car factory. He worked hard & rarely called in sick. Through the years, he & my mother oversaw the building of three new houses. One in Garden City & two in Plymouth, Michigan. It was like a hobby to them. Each house was bigger & better & farther from Detroit.

His son, Dwayne Allen Bundy, was born as the first & only son of which he was so proud. When Dwayne was little & daddy worked nights, Dwayne would say, “Daddy bring a dough-dough?” It was more like a fact than a question. And sure enough dad would bring home fresh dough-dough’s for the family the next morning.

Another special year was 1965 when my sister was born, Dalice Rae Bundy, the last of his three children. She was such a good baby & a delight to us all. She went to heaven this past March.

We were a fun family. Daddy always took us tobogganing, swimming, & camping. Sometimes I could get him to play board games with me, but he never let me win. He loved to toss a ball & play catch. For a while he even played softball on our church team. Sometimes he would put a potato in the fireplace in the hot coals to cook & eat. It warmed our tummies on those cold Michigan nights. As we grew up, our family expanded until Daddy had five grandsons & seven great-grandchildren.

As in all lives, the dark days came. When my mother, Reba, was diagnosed with cancer, my dad cared for her in an extraordinary way for two years. When mother died, it was like the end to an era. He lost the love of his life, floundered in so many ways thereafter. He finally took a medical retirement & moved back & forth between Michigan to Alabama in the next thirty years.

When he was single, he figured out he could drive I-20 & I-10 almost straight to my house from Alabama. He seemed to like being here & being with us. I finally talked him into moving here close to me. Shortly after his move, he was diagnosed with vascular dementia & then Parkinson’s disease. That is when he had to move to Bonnie’s Adult Care Home. He was so comfortable there & they truly loved him.

Over the years I developed a new relationship with him. As we went swimming, out to eat, & I took him to doctor appointments. It was so precious having that extraordinary friendship with an adult parent. I have many precious memories of our times together right up to the end. Now do you see why I say that this man was extraordinary when so many called him just an ordinary guy?