By Thomas Geyer
Quad City Times, Davenport, Iowa
MAYSVILLE, Iowa — Family and friends are remembering Maysville, Iowa, Fire Chief Ty Arp as not just a loving husband and father who loved his firefighters and his community, but also as a man who brought joy wherever he went.
Arp, 42, died Tuesday at University Hospitals, Iowa City, after suffering a stroke on Aug. 22.
Bridget Geigle, of Walcott, who also is on the Walcott Fire Department, has known Arp since childhood as they grew up together in Durant.
“He was my cousin’s best friend so I knew Ty from a very young age,” Geigle said.
“He was the genuine, small-town homeboy who was always laughing and trying to make someone else happy,” Geigle said. “He was the person who would give his time and energy to every community event, and volunteered for everything.
“He was always there for anybody,” she said. “If there was any event taking place in Maysville or Walcott he was there. If anything needed done, he did it. He helped with all the fundraising, everything.”
In addition to being a union journeyman electrician, Arp farmed on his family’s Century Farm, and with his cousin David Arp joined the Maysville Fire Department on Aug. 2, 1999.
“We were more like brothers than cousins,” said David Arp, who is one of the Assistant Chiefs of the Maysville Fire Department. “We were always interested in firefighting and we both wanted to be firefighters so we decided to join. He was 22 and I was 20.”
They all farmed as a family, David Arp said. “We always helped each other during planting and harvest.
“I tell you, he loved being the life of the party,” David Arp said. “He brought life and joy wherever he went. When it came to the family, he was the prankster. He always had the good ideas and us cousins would add to it and make them better. I could tell stories for years based on the things we did as cousins.”
Ty Arp really loved being a firefighter, David Arp said. “He loved his firefighters. Maysville is not a big department, but we’re like family. He loved every one of us. We were basically a second family.”
David Arp said that his cousin was born with Glycogen Storage Disease, a lifelong disease for which there is no cure.
Geigle remembered being around him when he was challenging the illness as a child. “He was not expected to live past the age of three,” she said. But the boy’s spirit was stronger than the disease.
David Arp described his cousin as, “A great person, a good man, an excellent Chief. He’s going to be missed. He loved his family, he loved his community and he loved his fire department.”
Ty Arp leaves behind a wife and three children.
Visitation is 4-7 p.m. Friday at Bentley Funeral Home in Durant.
Services with full honors will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday at St. Paul Lutheran Church, Davenport.
Interment will be in Maysville Cemetery.
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©2019 Quad City Times, Davenport, Iowa