Refugees who came to Syracuse found new lives with his help.
Syracuse, NY -- For more than 30 years, Bob Huss helped Syracuse’s newest residents learn English, find housing, get jobs, bring their families here and, when the time came, navigate the funeral system.
To the people Huss served, the Syracuse school district’s Refugee Assistance Center on Park Street is simply “Bob school.” It’s still Bob school, even though Huss retired in 2008.
Loni Truong thinks that’s how it will stay. “Everybody go to Bob school and learn English as a second language,” said Truong, whose family did just that. Huss helped her family get here from Vietnam. Truong came first, at age 15, and met Huss five years later. She said he was like a father to her. Others say the same.
Huss, 65, died this week from leukemia. It seems impossible to the refugee community that this big, strong, ever-present man could be gone, said Sereivath “Jeff” Tep.
He met Huss in 1981 when he arrived from Cambodia. After Tep graduated from Syracuse University, he took a job at the center and was amazed by Huss’ ability to learn everyone’s name and remember it 10 years later, no matter what the ethnicity. “All the refugees think of him as a father or an uncle,” Tep said.
Huss was the first person Vinh Dang met when he came here 15 years ago from Vietnam. Huss helped his whole family learn English, and he helped Dang, who was a captain in the South Vietnamese Army, organize an ex-political prisoners group. Over the years Dang turned to Huss for advice, and Huss was always there. “Everything we need, we came to him, and always we received with open arms,” Dang said.
When word of Huss’ death spread, the Vietnamese community — the women’s association, the seniors association, the ex-political prisoners group — began to plan to pay their respects. Terry Loftus, who worked with Huss for nearly 30 years, expects a line around the block for the calling hours.
Huss never said no and never turned anyone away, even if the person came through the door at 5 p.m. with a knotty problem, Loftus said. One time years ago, a young refugee visiting Canada got stopped at the border trying to get back to Syracuse using his brother’s identification, Loftus said. Huss somehow managed to extricate him.
Amela Begovic met Huss just after she arrived from Bosnia with her husband and 4-year-old son. She, too, went on to work at the center, where she is a health program facilitator. Begovic often wonders how Huss managed to accomplish all that he did, from immigration work to routine tasks.
“He would drive new kids to school to register them, and many of them would call him, like, Uncle Bob,” she said.
Like Truong, Begovic thought of Huss as a father. Because her parents and sister stayed in Bosnia, she turned to Huss for advice, even career advice about taking a new job. But she never did. To Begovic the center is home, in large measure because of Huss.
Tara Davis, one of Huss’ actual daughters, followed in his footsteps and teaches English as a Second Language at H.W. Smith School. She remembers being a child and listening as he explained what his job was. But it took becoming a teacher and working with “his people” for her to realize “what an impact he made on so many people.”
Her twin sister, Erica Haahr, teaches special education students in Solvay.
Other survivors include Huss’ wife, Jeanne Huss, and two grandchildren.
Calling hours will be 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Buranich Funeral Home, 5431 W. Genesee St., Camillus. The funeral will be at 9 a.m. Tuesday at St. Lucy’s Church, 432 Gifford St. Contributions in Huss’ name may be made to the SCSD Refugee Assistance Program, Attn: Stephanie Horton, 501 Park St., Syracuse NY 13203.
Contact Maureen Nolan 470-2185 or mnolan@syracuse.com.