Obituary of David A Henderson

Dave Henderson’s obituary for the Anderson-McQueen webpage:
Written by Dave’s wife Bonnie on Mar 16, 2021

On Feb 24, the Lord suddenly called Home, David Allen Henderson, 73, during his 2^nd week of home Hospice care. His health began slowly declining 2 years after a bout with sepsis a week after major surgery to repair an aortic aneurism. The ER doctor told me that 60 % of those who get sepsis and treated with antibiotics die within 2 days, and those who do live, often have damage to one or more organs. Dave pulled through, but I think it did cause damage to his lungs and heart. We feel blessed that we got a chance to enjoy him longer. When his decline started in mid January 2020, he didn’t get medical help because he didn’t want to end up in a Covid ward where loved ones couldn’t visit. He kept waiting for it to go away – like the Spanish flu did, and then he’d get medical help. But it dragged on so many months. Only God knows if Dave got medical intervention early on, if he’d be alive today or not.

We’d already planned the details for our 50^th Anniversary Party this October. Dave was a gregarious person but he also had a private side. He had a great sense of humor and was fun to spend time with. We were mostly homebodies because we had so much in common and enjoyed being together.

Also surviving in St Pete are son, Ryan Henderson, 35, daughter-in-law Erica MacDonald Henderson,and 5 year old son, Easton David Henderson.  In Piqua, OH where Dave was born, those surviving are his mother Anna (Deal) Henderson; sister-in-law Linda Henderson; 3 nieces; 4 grand-nieces and 2 grand-nephews. He was preceded in death by his father Robert Henderson and his brother Gary Henderson of Piqua, OH.      

Dave graduated in 1966 from Piqua Central High where he was elected Class President, Student Council President, and Prom King. He played all 3 sports and was recruited and offered a football scholarship at Murray State University where he majored in Business and Marketing. During the last game of his senior year he suffered a severe knee injury, which after walking for years with only a sliver of cartilage left in his right knee, needed a knee replacement in 2009.  After his full leg cast was removed in 1970, he moved to Columbus, OH and became a sales manager for a copier company. We met at an Ohio State football game party in Sept 1970 and married in Oct 1971. We moved to Westerville, OH near where I taught elementary and junior high students. He later became a Project Engineer with a conveyor company and learned to interface computers with conveyor systems. From there we moved to Omaha, Edgewood, KY, and Warwick, RI as Dave climbed the corporate ladder. In RI, we didn’t know a soul there, but at least Dave didn’t have to be on the road 3 weeks out of every month as a Regional Manager. After a year in RI we were blessed to have our son, Ryan, in 1985. We were 14 years later to start our family than most folks our age. After living two more years in RI with severe winters and Dave having to shovel the driveway 10 times with 6 foot snowfalls, he was ready to move to a warm climate. My parents retired in Lima, OH and moved to St Pete a year earlier, and my brother and his young family had just relocated from Dayton, OH to Winter Haven, FL to start his medical practice. That was our chance to get all 3 families back together again and put down roots for our 2 yr old son. No industry jobs were in FL so he tried his hand at health insurance sales when Dave Brim hired him to work for his company, Bay Marketing/Blue Cross & Blue Shield in Tampa. He worked there for 28 years, with more than half of those years as Office & Sales Manager.   

Dave was a devoted father: active in Ryan’s Cub Scout group for 3 years and co-coached his Northwest baseball team for 4 years. We were both active in his schools’ PTA. In the Cub Scout years we became good friends with Rick and Robin Hoover on camping outings. Rick got Dave interested in becoming a Mason in 1994 and Dave became a member of Nitram Lodge #188 until he passed on. He also became a Shriner in 2003. He loved the Masonic fraternity and made lots of friends. He was the head of his lodge in 2002, Treasurer for 4 yrs, and Secretary for 3 yrs.  2006’s Florida’s Grand Master Robert Trump, who also suddenly passed away this January, appointed Dave to be one of his District Deputy Grand Masters.

Dave and I loved the Bee Gees. Their hit “Words” was his song for me. We attended 9 of their concerts during their long career. When we lived in Westerville, OH, their popularity skyrocketed after the movie “Saturday Night Fever” came out. They had a concert scheduled in Cincinnati Fri and Sat night in the in late summer of 1978. Tickets for both nights sold out in 1 day!  I was heartbroken. The next weekend Dave told me he wanted me to open my Anniversary gift 2 months early and handed me an envelope. Inside were 2 BeeGees tickets . . . and 5 rows from center stage. He had taken off work that morning and stood in line for 2 hours to get great seats. A few weeks later we drove 3 hrs to Cincinnati,singing along all the way to their 8 track tapes. We experienced their spectacular 2-hour spectacular concert. 

The next day we talked on and on about the unique phenomenon we witnessed and how we’d never seen any concert with that much feverish excitement in the air. The stage lighting was eons ahead of any concert we’d ever seen or heard of. All the colored moving lights were synched with their voices and it was electrifying. - - - All of a sudden Dave said, “Let’s go again tonight! Let’s take a chance that we can get tickets from scalpers.” (That was before scalping had become a big issue). So at 4pm we headed out for another 3 hr drive to Cincinnati hoping to get tickets. Dave kept dickering with scalpers but most stood firm on $200 for one ticket – and Dave only had $200.  It was almost concert time and the scalpers were thinning out. Dave said to me, “You can have the ticket and I’ll wait outside for you when it’s over.”  I said that we go together or not at all. A scalper overheard us and gave Dave both tickets for $200.  We ran to the concert hall and got seated on the side where Barry was. It was an extravagant thing to do, but we were young and it sure made us great memories.

In 1997 he got the 3 of us tickets for their “One Night Only” Concert in Las Vegas (Celine Dion was to debut a song they wrote for her called “Immortality”). They were all staying at the MGM Grand Hotel where we also had a room. The day after their awesome concert, we walked around town taking in the sights and hoping to catch a glimpse of one of them. By 10pm we gave up looking for them and Ryan & I went back to our room while Dave played the slot machines. Bee Gee Robin Gibb was also playing the slots near Dave. He had a sailor’s hat pulled down to be inconspicuous, but Dave recognized him and walked over to shake his hand. They had a nice conversation, played more slots, and walked up together to the elevators. When Dave opened our door and said, “Guess who I’ve been chatting with!”  I threw all 6 pillows at him. The next day he rented a car and drove us to see the Grand Canyon. Near the top there was snow on the ground. Ryan was a baby in RI and didn’t remember the snow. He said he wished he could touch it. Soon Dave pulled onto the side of the road near a large open area. We all got out and made snow-angels. Then Dave lobbed a snowball at me and Ryan, and the real fun began! We made it to the top just in time to see that part of the Canyon for half an hour before dark.”   

Dave and I were also avid Rush Limbaugh fans since 1989.  The only politician Dave ever respected was Ronald Reagan . .  . up until Donald Trump ran for office. We both liked what Pres Trump was doing for our country. These last 6 months when Dave was getting tired and out of breath a lot, he spent many hours researching alternative news sites and became as convinced as I was, that Trump would emerge by the Spring as President because there was hard proof that 3 foreign countries actively interfered with the election. The regular media refused to report it. He also thought that the choice for his new VP would shock the country, but in a good way.   

I always thought I would die before Dave did, since he was seldom ever sick, and I had coughing jags daily for 20 years and a large cyst in my liver.  Life is so unpredictable. Under his laptop he kept 3 of his favorite songs (CD’s):  BeeGees “Words” –  Chris de Burgh “Lady in Red” – and Bryan Adams “Everything I Do, I Do It for You”. Under those CD's he kept a card I gave him 8 years ago which wasn't the typical Anniversary card. It simply said: “You are the most sense my life has ever made.”  

Ryan, Easton, and I will love and miss him “to the moon and back”.  

Dave's memorial service will be held at 11am on Saturday, April 17th at Nitram #188 Masonic Lodge, 4275 78th Street N, St. Petersburg, FL 33709. In lieu of sending flowers, please consider sending a donation in his name to the Shriner’s Children Hospital in Tampa.