MONFORT HEIGHTS — Greg Ruehlmann, an intense litigator with a kind heart, died suddenly Monday at his home. He was 56.
The son of former Cincinnati Mayor Eugene Ruehlmann, Mr. Ruehlmann lived for years with painful degenerative conditions in his back and knees.
But that didn’t quench his thirst for reading, for helping others or for spirited debates in the courtroom and at home, his family said.
“He was a litigator through and through,” his son Greg Ruehlmann Jr. of Chicago said. “He didn’t lose arguments.”
At 6-foot-3 and about 240 pounds, the former defensive tackle at St. Xavier High School and Northwestern University had a big personality and a big heart, family and friends said.
“Greg didn’t do anything small,” younger brother Mark Ruehlmann of Indian Hill said. “If my mom asked Greg to build a fire, it would be so big it would almost burn the house down.”
Greg Parson, a lifelong friend since meeting Mr. Ruehlmann at during first grade at St. Teresa of Avila School in West Price Hill, remembers debates that went on for days.
“He was persistent in his side and would fight tooth and nail so you would believe him,” Parson said. “And if you didn’t believe him, he’d mention it again the next time he saw you.”
But Mr. Ruehlmann’s back pain grew so intense that he retired from the Squire, Sanders & Dempsey law firm in 2010. On Christmas Day this year, the pain forced him to stay home rather than joining the family’s traditional Christmas gathering, said his sister Andrea Cornett of Milan, Ind.
Parson said Mr. Ruehlmann’s death was sudden, “but from my perspective, a blessing.”
“Over the last few years he’d been in severe pain,” Parson said. “Now the pain is gone, and for that I am most grateful.”
Mr. Ruehlmann graduated from St. Xavier and then went to Northwestern on a football scholarship, graduating in 1978. After earning his law degree in 1981 from Vanderbilt University, he returned home to practice law with his father.
Children Greg and Amanda Ruehlmann recall family trips to Hilton Head, S.C. and Gatlinburg, Tenn., and said their father was a voracious reader.
He loved listening to St. X games on the radio with the fire going in the fall,” Amanda Ruehlmann said.
Sister Cornett said her brother “could be intimidating because of his physical size, but if you knew him he was the kindest person you ever met.”
“I always saw him as my protector, both as a child and as an adult,” Cornett said.
Mr. Ruehlmann was preceded in death by his mother, Virginia Ruehlmann.
He is survived by his wife Jean Ruehlmann; father Eugene Ruehlmann; sons Greg Jr. of Chicago and Keith Ruehlmann of Columbus; daughters Amanda Ruehlmann of Delhi Township and Jennifer Terry of Dayton; and Adam Ruehlmann and Josh Hogan, to whom he was like a father.
He also is survived by sisters Ginny Wiltse of Delhi Township, Margie Straus of Green Township, Andrea Cornett of Milan, Ind.; brothers Pete Ruehlmann of Delhi Township, Jim Ruehlmann of Montgomery, Mark Ruehlmann of Indian Hill and Rick Ruehlmann of Mason, and dozens of nieces and nephews.
The family will host a visitation Friday at 10:30 a..m. at Meyer Funeral Home, 5864 Bridgetown Road, with the funeral to follow at 2 p.m. at St. Teresa of Avila Church at 1175 Overlook Ave. A private family burial will follow at St. John Cemetery in Delhi Township.
The family has requested donations to the Caring Response Madagascar Foundation,
http://www.caringresponse.org or 1193 Balmoral Drive, Cincinnati, 45233; and Catholic Residential Services, 100 E. Eighth St., Cincinnati, 45202.
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20111...arguments-