Benjamin Alfred Alves, Jr.
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Heaven gained a great man and servant as, Benjamin "BenO" Alfred Alves Jr., passed away on June 1, 2021, at the age of 87, in his hometown of San Antonio, Texas. He was with his loving family when he peacefully passed on to join our Lord in heaven. As always, he remained a hero and stayed strong until the end.
Ben was born at the Alves home in Selma, Texas on June 10, 1933, one of 13 children, to Virginia Mae and Benjamin Alfred Alves Sr.. He lived a happy childhood in a strong family environment that valued a strong work ethic, high strength of character, and Christian morals. This strong family character proved valuable when his father, Benjamin Sr., passed away on his 9th birthday. He was quickly forced to “grow up” to help the family in any way possible. Upon graduating from San Antonio Technical High School in May of 1951, he started work at Western Electric. Soon thereafter, he enlisted in the United States Navy on August 7, 1952. Following his basic training, he was assigned to the USS Merrick (AKA-97), an Andromeda-class attack cargo ship, during the Korean War. During his service on USS Merrick, he participated in “Operation Big Switch” in August 1953, which involved transporting 6,400 Korean and Chinese prisoners to Inchon for repatriation following the armistice. Of his 3 years, 11 months and 2 days of service, he was stationed in a foreign nation or at sea for 3 years and 7 months. He completed his service in the Navy July 9, 1956, and returned to San Antonio to work for Western Electric, who had agreed to save his position for him while he served.
On April 25, 1957, he agreed to join a friend on a blind date. There, he met Dorothy Mae Schrock and found the love of his life. They were soon married on August 10, 1957 and remained inseparable for the next 64 years. Over the next 6 years, Ben and Dorothy had three children, Leslie, Nancie, and Benjie. Ben’s extreme love of family helped to create a universe in which he was the center. With a lot of love and true grit, he instilled into his family the same strong work ethic, strength of character and Christian morals he so valued from his own childhood.
Ben was an avid gardener and never went a year without planting vegetables. While my siblings and I were very young we always had fresh cows milk, fresh eggs, and fresh vegetables daily. Dad believed a good garden and providing for yourself, built character. My siblings and I definitely remember the character building moments when we were cleaning animal pens and picking vegetables. I did learn to appreciate those lessons and I never go a year myself without a vegetable garden.
Ben was always the fix-it man for family and friends. He was the first guy you called for anything. He could repair anything, build anything and had a vast knowledge of all things mechanical and was a master electrician. He believed that doing things yourself also built character and helped you appreciate all you have. He was right, my siblings and I have a wealth of knowledge from our dad about how to do things and appreciate it all. As a whole he wanted to make sure his children were good hard workers that were self-sufficient.
Ben was the hardest and most dedicated worker at any company. His longest career was over 34 years with H.B. Zachry Company. At Zachry, he was highly regarded as an inspiring, no-nonsense leader that was always tagged as the man “you need to get the job done right”. He was typically assigned the most complex projects or those that needed a strong hand to get them back on track. He was a highly valued mentor for many of the ensuing leaders at Zachry as well as across the broader construction industry. This is another character quality his children learned from him and has made all of us successful in career and life.
Ben retired to Mountain Home, Texas in 2001 with Dorothy to live out the life of a rancher he loved so dearly. On that ranch, our families created countless memories with “Ben-O”. He also felt a strong obligation to participate in his community. He served as a Director of the West Kerr County Chamber of Commerce and became the President of the Emergency Services District in Kerrville, Texas, helping to raise funds for new and upgraded equipment. Ben and Dorothy finally moved to Boerne Texas in 2018 to be closer to San Antonio and their family.
In early 2020, Ben started showing signs of short term memory loss. Also during this time he received approval for a cochlear implant due to his severe hearing loss. Ben had never been in the hospital and never had surgery in his life, so this was a bigger deal than just getting his hearing device. Unfortunately, this implant did not work and had to be removed during the summer of 2020.
PTSD was also something that plagued Ben throughout his life after his war service. As 2020 went by, his memory loss started causing confusion and he started having balance issues. We took him to a VA memory specialist and he was diagnosed with rapid vascular dementia. With this diagnosis, we got busy trying to figure how we could make sure to keep him safe and healthy. As the disease progressed, we knew we had to get him somewhere safe, that could offer him the 24/7 care he needed.
Ben was moved to Patriot Heights VA long term care facility in San Antonio on December 8, 2020. Their staff and team worked hard to keep him safe and healthy. Over the next 6 months the disease continued to progress and there seemed to be nothing we could do to stop it. His mobility was diminished and he no longer could walk. During the progression, Ben still recognized faces, and voices, and would call your name which made it even harder to watch him deteriorate. We made sure to do our in person visits and video calls with him everyday to help him stay alert and let him know his family was there with him. We as a family made sure to follow his daily care and were his advocates for ensuring he had the best care possible. He was such a strong fighter and hung in there for 6.5 months, until the disease developed into late stage dementia very quickly.
Ben came to the end of his life on June 1, 2021 surrounded by family as he peacefully left this earth and went to heaven. This was our first experience with dementia and it was devastating to watch a great man succumb to this disease. Dementia seems to be different for everyone. No one deserves the dementia life of memory loss, loss of mobility, and the frustration he felt during times he knew something was wrong and did not understand what was happening.
Ben was a larger-than-life mentor and father figure to everyone he met. He believed that everyone was placed onto the earth by God to help each other, no excuses. And he lived by that principle every day and touched the lives of countless people over the years. There is an old saying by Babe Ruth stating “Heroes are remembered, but legends never die...” – while Ben's physical presence may be gone, the memories of him will last forever. Legends are like that…
Unfortunately, there are many stories just like ours about parents, siblings, and friends that develop a form of dementia. We wanted to share the story of our dad to show that this disease can happen to anyone. We believe there needs to be more research and your donation to this organization will help to find either a cure or ways to help people.
Ben will be missed and will be loved forever. Dad, you will always be our hero.