Dec 3, 2022 3 min read

A Fayette County funeral home will provide a burial service for a homeless veteran who was struck and killed by a vehicle while crossing Route 51 in Jefferson Hills on Nov. 26.

Robbin Fisher, 61, of Pittsburgh, died in a Pittsburgh hospital following the accident, and has no family that is able to pay for the U.S. Army veteran’s funeral expenses.

So in stepped John Fabry, a funeral director and owner of Goldsboro-Fabry Funeral Home Inc., in Fairchance, whose father was a World War II veteran who survived after he was shot and wounded while crossing the Rhine River with then-Lt. Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army.

The funeral home will provide a dignified burial service with full military honors at the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies in Washington County on Tuesday at 1 p.m.

Fabry has coordinated a proper final farewell for more than 300 veterans over the past 10 years, and Fisher’s funeral will be the 20th dignified burial Fabry has arranged this year.

Fabry said he feels a sense of responsibility to arrange send-offs for veterans who have no close family members or no friends nearby.

“My dad was a veteran, and he was 100% disabled after being shot. I had a rough childhood because of his injuries. He had a terrible nervous condition and had three nervous breakdowns,” Fabry recalled.

His father died at age 38, when Fabry was 11 years old.

“I feel you have to try to do something to help people, and I believe veterans are a good cause. If you help people on one end, God helps you on the other end.”

The George C. Marshall Amvets Post 103 Honor Guard of Hopwood will provide military funeral honors, including a rifle volley, Taps, and presentation of the flag.

Fisher served as a private in the U.S. Army from 1980 to 1983.

Fabry said not much is known about Fisher’s life. A widower, he worked as a roofer, but battled drug addiction and was homeless at the time he died.

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office tracked down Fisher’s niece, with whom he briefly lived but was estranged. She had last seen him about three months ago when she ran into him on a Pittsburgh street, Fabry said.

When Fisher’s niece shared with the medical examiner’s office that she couldn’t afford a burial, the office told her to get in touch with Fabry.

“She called me last Tuesday, and we ended up texting back and forth, and in 15 minutes I had her uncle approved for burial in the Cemetery of the Alleghenies,” said Fisher.

Ed Hajduk, director of the Cemetery of the Alleghenies, called Fabry “a godsend.”

“He does an awesome job with our dignified burials. I’m so glad he’s here, doing what he does and helping our veterans,” said Hajduk.

The cemetery conducts about six dignified and indigent burials each month.

For Fabry, the dignified burial acknowledges the veterans’ service to the country and provides a final resting place.

“I want veterans to have a burial, a final disposition as quickly as possible,” said Fabry. “It’s the right thing to do.”