Family, friends remember philanthropist E.W. Firstenburg

E.W. Firstenburg, the Vancouver banker and philanthropist who died at age 97 last Saturday, would have loved the informal gathering of close friends who celebrated his life.

“My dad had a living will,” said son William Firstenburg, “and it said, ‘I don’t want any fancy funeral or wake, don’t want any big grieving. If a few friends want to get together and visit and have some food and a drink, I guess that would be all right.’”

There must have been hundreds of people Friday in the lobby of Vancouver’s downtown First Independent Bank, the business Firstenburg built across decades, and a list of their names would have been a Who’s Who of Clark County dignitaries, decision-makers and tycoons.

Plus admirers such as Dean Vrooman, a loan assistant at First Independent Bank who got his start as a courier.

“I wanted to meet him on my first day,” Vrooman said, so he went to the Waterford retirement home where Firstenburg had taken residence with his wife, Mary, and his determination to open an in-house branch. Firstenburg was working behind the counter when Vrooman introduced himself.

“He was about 95 and he was a legend in the banking world,” Vrooman said. “We sat and talked for about 45 minutes. He told stories about banking and about all the changes he’d seen. And about his wife, Mary, who was ill then. He was very dedicated to her.”

Firstenburg loved people and loved to gab, folks said Friday. Several recalled that when his $15 million gift led to the creation of the Firstenburg Patient Tower at Southwest Washington Medical Center, Ed Firstenburg showed up in person to greet visitors. That was in 2005, when he was in his mid-90s.

“He was on his feet for two whole days. He shook hand after hand,” said Jeanne Rahn, executive director of the hospital’s foundation.

“He enjoyed the experience of greeting and thanking people so much,” said David Nierenberg, a fellow businessman and philanthropist who chipped in another $15 million for the tower after Firstenburg pledged the first $15 million — at the time the largest gift ever given by a living donor to a Clark County cause.

“He was giving back to thousands of ordinary people, like his customers. I think he felt the community had been very good to him and he was very motivated to do the same,” Nierenberg said.

Firstenburg told Nierenberg that when he first had the opportunity to buy the bank he was working for, Ridgefield State Bank, he had to borrow money from his mother to do it, and promised to pay her back at least $25 a month.

But then, to retire the loan even faster, he bought himself and his young bride a 50-pound sack of rice and determined to live on nothing but that — and the kindness of his friends. He got enough free meals, and stretched that rice far enough, to pay the loan off early.

“That is a story about discipline and sacrifice and extraordinary motivation,” Nierenberg said.

Tough and fun

Firstenburg once gave Royce Pollard a total tongue-lashing.

The verbal barrage covered everything the banker didn’t like about the city of Vancouver, from politicians to competitors and traffic to taxes.

Pollard, an ambitious mayor who’d come with hat in hand all the way to Florida to interrupt Firstenburg’s vacation, figured he’d failed in his mission — to get an east-side community center built. He said so. But Firstenburg encouraged him to keep talking — he was just enjoying the chance to have a captive audience in the mayor of America’s Vancouver — and eventually he reached a deal with Pollard: $3 million for the community center building that eventually bore his name.

“He was a smart man who chose wisely,” Pollard said. “He was very generous and very frugal. He was a guy who knew the value of a dime. He wanted to get the greatest community benefit out of everything he did.”

Once he’d committed to it, Pollard said, Firstenburg came around to inspect the building site frequently.

“He loved the project and he was proud of what he had done,” he said.

Pollard said Firstenburg was one of the last and largest members of an “old boys club” made up of local captains of industry and business who later turned to community-building — men such as George Propstra and Ray Hickey.

“He was one of those great guys who was a foundation of this community,” he said.