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Lionel "Lee" Rombach Civil servant and philanthropist died at age 93.
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Life Stories
This feature chronicles the lives of recently deceased Tucsonans. Some were well-known across the community. Others had an impact on a smaller sphere of friends, family and acquaintances. Many of these people led interesting — and sometimes extraordinary — lives with little or no fanfare. Now you'll hear their stories. Past "Life Stories" are online at go.azstarnet.com/ lifestories.

Tucson Region

He lived frugally while giving his time and fortune to others

By Kimberly Matas
arizona daily star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 02.01.2008
"When a man dies, he clutches in his hands only that which he has given away during his lifetime."
— Swiss-French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Lionel "Lee" Rombach lived a life of abundance through austerity.
He owned few possessions, got as much wear as he could out of his clothing and ate a sparse diet, consisting largely of oats, beans, rice and powdered milk. He calculated he could survive on less than $4 a day.
He spent his career as a civil servant, but his frugality wasn't a result of low wages. Rombach chose to spend little on his own comfort so others could benefit from his generosity.
"I don't think he viewed it as self-denial. I think when you have people who choose a lifestyle of voluntary simplicity it's not something to be endured," said Brint Milward, director of the School of Public Administration & Policy at the University of Arizona Eller College of Management, which benefited from Rombach's largesse.
"He had a very, very rich life with friends and people that he helped over the years. It was just a different choice than most people make and one that was marvelous for society. He was one of the happiest people I ever met."
Rombach's philanthropy continues following his death Jan. 24 at age 93, through his endowments to the Eller College, the UA School of Art and the university's religious studies program. His generosity will be remembered at a 10 a.m. funeral Mass on Saturday at the Newman Center, 1615 E. Second St., on the UA campus.
"Service is my creed, and I've stayed with it quite well," Rombach said in a 1999 Arizona Daily Star article. Into his late 80s, before his eyesight began to fail, he often tooled along Tucson streets on his bicycle. Rombach was proud that he pedaled an average of 5,000 miles a year, compared with driving only 400 in his decades-old car.
An only child, Rombach was born in Brooklyn, but his family moved to Tucson in 1919. After he graduated from Tucson High School, Rombach earned a bachelor's degree in public administration from the UA.
He worked as a firefighter, was employed by the American Red Cross and served in the military during World War II. Afterward, he took a job as a juvenile probation officer for nearly a decade, then spent four years as a school attendance officer in the late '50s. In 1958, he was appointed assistant adult probation officer for Pima County.
Rombach never married and didn't have children. He lived in the same modest house for more than 60 years, a home he shared with his parents until their deaths. He worked for the adult probation office for more than 25 years, 11 of which he spent as the department's chief.
"He thought of probation work as social work," said his friend Merrilee Holmes, an employee with the Eller College.
UA faculty member the Rev. Robert Burns will celebrate Rombach's Mass. He met the philanthropist after Rombach retired from the probation department and returned to the university to earn a degree in religious studies. In all, Rombach earned four degrees from UA.
"He felt it was his vocation to help people," Burns said. "I've been here at the university for a long time and met thousands of people, but no one like Lee. Totally unique, he was a delight to be with, and so humble."
Rombach gave his probationers a chance to live up to his expectations, too. His co-workers in the probation department remember Rombach writing "flowery and caring" letters to out-of-state probationers who still owed court fines and fees, according to a 1984 Daily Star article. The result: In a year's time, he received more than $60,000 in restitution.
"He was famous for having written these letters," Holmes said.
A deeply spiritual man, Rombach adopted many of his personal tenets from the lives of the saints and philosophers he admired, including St. Ignatius, St. Augustine and Swiss-French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, all of whom stressed activism and self-giving.
Rombach's generosity piqued the interest of the Internal Revenue Service, which audited him after his charitable giving reached more than 50 percent of his annual income.
"The man that does my taxes says it's sacrificial giving, but to me it's not sacrificial unless I do without," he said in 1999. "I have everything I want, so it's not sacrificing anything. My wants and needs are very simple."
Indeed, said Holmes, Rombach told her that "he knew the difference between wants and needs and if more people knew the difference, they would be able to do more."
Rombach had given monetary gifts to his alma mater through the decades, but in 2000, with the guidance of the Eller College's Milward, he established The Rombach Institute on Crime, Delinquency and Corrections. Money from Rombach's estate will fully fund the program, Milward said.
In the last seven years, Rombach also provided scholarships for 26 students pursuing master's degrees in public administration and endowments for eight outstanding graduates, totaling nearly $270,000.
"He had a wonderful way of being very optimistic," Milward said. "He knew what the world was like, but on the other hand, he always had a smile and always wanted to know how he could be of service."
Students of religious studies benefited from Rombach's giving, too, through The Lionel E. Rombach Scholarship in Religious Studies. Nearly $200,000 has been allocated to students in the program, Burns said. And Rombach often helped cover the cost of religious retreats for individual students.
Rombach, who was interested in the religions of the world, served as a deacon in the Presbyterian Church before joining the Roman Catholic Church, where he served as a deacon for 20 years. He extended his generosity to the Catholic Church by donating tens of thousands of dollars through the years.
Rombach was a woodworker in his free time and supported the arts as a volunteer and a benefactor. Julie Sasse, chief curator of the Tucson Museum of Art, met Rombach in the mid-1990s when she was the curator of multiple galleries at UA.
"He wanted to actually offer an exhibition of his wood furniture he had made as a way of creating a donation for the college," she said.
"At the time, I was so harried, I was so frazzled with work, I said, 'We don't need another artist. We don't need an exhibition. We need help.' I said, 'What I could use, more than making sales of your art. … I need help manning the desk.' "
When Rombach realized he could be of service as a volunteer, Sasse said, "he became one of the most compelling advocates for the arts. He would be there every day in the Student Union (gallery). He would go out in the halls and bring whole basketball teams into the gallery to see the art."
Rombach became so involved in the arts that he made an endowment to establish the Lionel Rombach Gallery on campus. And he eventually did get a showing of his woodwork.
Many people thought Rombach was a wealthy man, said Sasse, who was "shocked" the first time she visited his home and saw "he lived like a monk."
"I reprimanded him a few times. … I said, 'Lionel, why don't you ever spend anything on yourself?' He said, 'I don't need to. I get my greatest pleasure in giving it away.'"
● To suggest someone for Life Stories, contact reporter Kimberly Matas at kmatas@azstarnet.com or 573-4191. Read more from this reporter online at go.azstarnet.com/lastwrites.
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