Veteran owned salvage firm

3/13/2002

ADRIAN - Bob E. Brown, the longtime owner of a local salvage company until last year, died of an aortic aneurysm Sunday in St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, Ypsilanti. He was 75.

Mr. Brown started E&B Salvage Co. in 1983. Operating out of a warehouse, the firm sold scrap and reclaimed metal parts to customers from throughout the region, including Toledo.

Mr. Brown sold the business last year but continued to manage it for the new owner, his daughter, Joy Echelbarger said. Mr. Brown learned the scrap-metal business at the former Adrian Salvage Metals Co., where he worked for about 30 years.

Mr. Brown and his wife, Elaine, married in 1950.

“I had one wonderful man. He was a super guy. He was always good-natured. I was taken sick in 1997, and he stood by me through thick and thin,” Mrs. Brown said. For years, Mr. and Mrs. Brown led the Wednesday song night service at Adrian Church of God; he sang to her piano accompaniment. Mr. Brown was a former member of the church's board.

As a Marine from 1944 to 1946, Mr. Brown served in Guam and in China.

His memberships included the Fairfield, Mich., Masonic Lodge 157, F&AM, and the Annis-Flint VFW Post 1584 of Adrian.

Surviving are his wife, Elaine; daughters, Joy L. Echelbarger and Judy Ann Conrad; sisters, Leona Hewitt and Elsie Hadden; brothers, Irving and Kenneth, three grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

Services will be at 1:30 p.m. tomorrow in the Anderson Funeral Home, where the body will be after 2 p.m. today, with a Masonic service at 7:30. The family requests tributes to the Adrian Church of God or to the Clinton Church of God.