IBM troubleshooter was there for country, family
Even though IBM troubleshooter Raoul Rapneth had retired after nearly 44 years, he was still trying to fix computers in his sleep.
“Once when he was sleeping in front of the TV, his hands were moving like he was fixing a machine for three hours in his sleep. You know that stuff went through his head morning, noon and night,” said son Raoul Rapneth III of Morningside.
Raoul C. Rapneth Jr. of East Liberty died on Friday, June 27, 2014, in Oakmont Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation. He was 90.
He was born to Louise and Raoul Rapneth Sr., Italian immigrants who had changed their names. His father worked at Westinghouse, and his mother was a seamstress.
His family lived in an apartment building on Penn Avenue in East Liberty. Mr. Rapneth used to talk through the windows in an elevator shaft in the building to another occupant, Pauline Moore. The couple would go to Isaly's for ice cream. They were married and had three children.
Mr. Rapneth served from 1943 to 1946 in a tank unit in World War II. He landed with American forces in Normandy during the D-Day invasion.
“He got extremely sick because the seas were rough. You're ducking bullets while you're experiencing violent nausea,” his son said.
His children's mother died of cancer in about 1960 when they were young, and Mr. Rapneth became a single father before the term became popular. He sometimes worked late at IBM and made spaghetti, cooked steaks or took the children out for dinner when he came home. In the morning, he made oatmeal topped with brown sugar, maple syrup or raisins.
His son tested his father's patience by bringing home a menagerie of snakes, raccoons, possums, wild and domestic rabbits and pigeons. When seven garter snakes escaped from his dry aquarium, Mr. Rapneth told his son to find them in no uncertain terms.
“I was able to locate five of them,” he said. “We never found the other two.”
Christmases were a special occasion. A Lionel train would huff and puff around a 9-foot-tall, meticulously decorated evergreen.
“The tinsel had to be put on the tree just right. You couldn't throw it. Every piece of tinsel had to lay nice and straight on the tree,” said his daughter, Susan Sunseri of East Liberty.
Survivors include another son, Vincent Rapneth of Penn Hills, six grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
Friends may visit from 3 p.m. Tuesday until the service starts at 6:30 p.m. in D'Alessandro Funeral Home and Crematory Ltd., Butler at 46th streets, Lawrenceville. Family and friends will gather at the funeral home at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday for a funeral procession escorted by the Patriot Guard Riders to Allegheny Cemetery for a committal service at 1 p.m.
Bill Zlatos is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-320-7828 or bzlatos@tribweb.com.
