Harold Bushnell LeRoy
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Harold Bushnell LeRoy, 90, a drafting supplies sales manager at George F.  Muth Co. in the District for 39 years and a longtime volunteer firefighter, died of sepsis Jan. 22 at Fairfax Nursing Center. He lived at the Gardens assisted living facility in Fairfax since 2005. Mr. LeRoy, who was known as Buddy, joined Jefferson District Volunteer Fire Company No. 5 in Arlington County in 1938 and served almost 70 years.
During World War II, he was sworn in as a member of the paid Arlington Fire Department but never received a paycheck. He served as the last  volunteer chief until the county fire department took over in the early 1960s.
He was president of the Arlington County Fire and Rescue Association for more than 25 years and resigned in December because of illness. He also was an honorary member of Arlington's Professional Firefighters and Paramedics  Association and received the county's Volunteer of the Year Recognition Award in the 1980s.
A Washington native, Mr. LeRoy graduated from  Eastern High School in 1936. He attended the University of Maryland on a football scholarship, but his athletic career was short-lived because of a leg injury. He served as an officer in the Virginia State Guard during World War II. He was in the Civil Air Patrol during the Korean War, manning the Ground Observer Corps tower on Route 1 and looking for suspicious air traffic.
He married in 1941, and he and his wife moved to the Addison Heights section of Arlington, where they lived for 64 years. They appeared in an article in and on the cover of The Washington Post's "Where We Live" Real Estate section March 11, 2000.
He retired from the George F. Muth Co. about 1976 and then worked part  time for Sesco Inc. in Fairfax for 15 years.
Mr. LeRoy was a Mason and steward for more than 70 years and a member of the Arlington Centennial Lodge of Virginia, Benjamin B. French Lodge of D.C., and the Knights Templar's Potomac Commandery No. 003 of D.C.
He bowled, loved to fish on the Chesapeake Bay and played softball. He was a lifelong fan of the Washington Redskins, Washington Senators and the Baltimore Orioles. He served as a groundskeeper for the Alexandria Dukes in the mid-1970s.
Mr. LeRoy was a member of Calvary United Methodist Church in Arlington since 1940.
His wife of 66 years, Elizabeth "Beth"  King LeRoy, died in 2006.
Survivors include three daughters, Bonnie L. Rayburn of Front Royal, Va., Barbara L. Malone of Hope Town, Abaco, Bahamas, and Deborah L. Sansone of  South Riding; nine grandchildren; 13 great-grandchildren; and one great-great-granddaughter.