Troop 1
Crestwood NY
Kings County Hospital · November 11, 1933 · Adopted 1936
"Dad" Peter Edward Garst
November 11, 1933 · July 24, 2014 · Vero Beach, Florida
Eagle Scout. Army veteran. Risk manager. Curbside rescuer of sailboats and blue couches. The man who played tennis with a Wilson T1000 in one hand and a cigarette in the other — and one day just quietly quit the rat race.
Born Baby Rakebrandt on November 11, 1933. Given up by a 17-year-old mother who loved him too much to watch him suffer. Adopted by Paul and Helen Garst in 1936. Called Peter Edward Garst ever after.
Crestwood, NYThe Story Before the Story
Born in the Depression.
Chosen by the Garsts.
He was born Baby Rakebrandt to Lillian Rakebrandt, who was just 17 years old. The father was unknown. It was the Great Depression, and Lillian could barely feed herself, let alone her son. Without real milk, the baby began developing rickets.
Lillian loved her son completely. And because she loved him completely, she did the hardest thing imaginable: she gave him up. This was almost unheard of at the time. He went to a Catholic organization run by Sisters of Charity, where he became very close to one woman in particular.
Then Paul and Helen Garst came along. They adopted him in 1936. The adoption was finalized in 1938. They named him Peter Edward Garst — and that was who he would be for the next 80 years.
Even so, somewhere inside, he carried the memory of those first years — a longing that never fully left him, and that shaped the quiet, complicated man his family loved.
Paul and Helen gave Peter everything. They moved to Crestwood, a section of Yonkers, where Peter attended PS 15 and then Annunciation Catholic School as it was forming. Summer vacations, great care, and in the 1950s — when nobody flew — trips to Bermuda by plane.
Peter became an Eagle Scout at Troop 1. He graduated from Annunciation Grammar School and then Iona High School in New Rochelle. He attended Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia and Iona College, and in between, enlisted in the U.S. Army at Fort Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma.
He was an altar boy. A lecturer at Annunciation Church. A young man with roots he'd built himself out of what he was given, and a future he was determined to make.
He married his childhood sweetheart, Nancy Ann Clark — 56 years together. Five children, all born within four years of each other. One beautiful, chaotic, full life.
Family Archive
Peter Edward Garst — In Photographs
158 Hollywood Avenue, Crestwood
The Man Who Fixed Things.
Who Played Hide and Seek.
Fixer of the House
The 80-year-old center hall colonial at 158 Hollywood Avenue needed constant attention. When ceiling moldings came down, Peter fixed them. When the kitchen needed work, he put in a dropped ceiling and changed the lights. When the only full bathroom needed updating, he updated it. When the twins got locked in the bathroom as toddlers — he broke the door down.
The Wilson T1000
At the Coveleigh Club on the Long Island Sound, Peter played tennis with his Wilson T1000 in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He was 5-foot-11 and 140 pounds from high school to 60. A thin man of elegant habits and occasional vices, fully committed to both at once.
Hide and Seek with Five Kids
When Mom was at work, Dad played hide and seek with all five children in that big colonial house. Five kids, all born within four years of each other. The man had stamina, patience, and a gift for making the ordinary feel like an adventure.
The Quit
There were ashtrays in every room with a lit Kool cigarette, and later a long distinguished brown More. When his health started declining — no patches, no therapy, no gradual tapering. One day he just quit. Cold turkey. That was Peter Garst.
Always Reading
You could always find Peter with a book. He loved to read — quietly, consistently, in the way of a man who found genuine peace in a good page. It was one of his constants, from Crestwood to Vero Beach.
The Skis in the Closet
There were old skis in the basement closet, next to the dryer. Nobody ever saw him use them. They lived there for years — a monument to intention, or perhaps simply to the fact that a man with five kids and a mortgage rarely gets to the mountain.
The Rescues
The Curb. The Red Baron.
The Blue Couch.
Peter Garst had a gift for seeing value in what others discarded. A big blue couch rescued from the curb became a bedroom staple — the perfect spot to watch TV, and, from the second-floor windows, to watch for that big white Mercury station wagon with the fake wood coming down the street.
Then there was the Sunfish sailboat. Also from the curb. Peter spent months filling its holes with fiberglass and resin. He found a rudder, a centerboard, and a sail. He painted it red and named it the Red Baron.
The Winterclove stories are their own chapter. On one winter vacation in upstate New York, young Pete came running in — he'd found several $20 and $50 bills. His surprise at discovering it was Dad's money was considerable.
On another Winterclove trip, Peter went out in the dark and freezing cold to jump-start a friend's dead battery. The car? The just purchased late-1960s Ford Fairlane station wagon — green, fake wood, big enough for all seven Garsts and their luggage. The positive and negative cables got switched. The Fairlane was never the same. They had to rent a car to get home.
That was start of of 1972. And incident brought us to one beautiful autobile a Mercury station wagon — yes, fake wood — even bigger and newer than the Fairlane.
Dad just loved the fake wood. Every station wagon he ever owned after the Chevy II had it. It was not negotiable.
The Fleet — A Love Story in Fake Wood
His Automobiles
Peter Garst's relationship with station wagons — particularly those with fake wood paneling — was lifelong, devoted, and entirely non-negotiable.
Note: The Chrysler LeBaron wagon — his late-life woodie — was eventually taken out by a Florida hurricane. He had driven the Torino with black seats in the Florida sun and the Fairmont with no AC. The man could endure.
The Pivot
When Corporate America Changed Its Values. He Kept His.
He Chose Kindness.
For years, Peter worked in Risk Management for several Fortune 500 companies in New York City. The money was there. The pressure was enormous. Five kids. A big house. The 1970s corporate world. Scotch got him through the harder years.
But when it became too much — when Manhattan felt cruel and the pressure outweighed the reward — Peter made a decision that took real courage: he found his way back to himself. He drove a cab for Tanglewood. He simplified. He breathed.
In Florida, as retirement approached, he worked at Scottie's and then Lowe's — two hardware stores where he spent his days helping people, answering questions, and being exactly the kind, unhurried, knowledgeable man he had always been underneath the corporate suit.
"When things got crazy, he found jobs that reduced the pressure and allowed him to be who he was — a kind man who did the right thing."
Peter Edward Garst — The Record
Born — November 11, 1933, Kings County Hospital (as Baby Rakebrandt)
Adopted — 1936, finalized 1938, by Paul and Helen Garst
Eagle Scout — Troop 1, Crestwood, NY
Education — Annunciation Grammar, Iona High School, St. Joseph's University, Iona College
Military — U.S. Army, Fort Sill, Lawton, Oklahoma
Married — Nancy Ann Clark, 56 years
Children — Peter, Maryhelen, Stephen, Edward, Dorothy (5 kids, 4 years)
Build — 5'11", 140 lbs, high school to age 60. Unchanged.
Died — July 24, 2014, Vero Beach, FL. After a long battle with Alzheimer's.
A Life in Full
Peter Edward Garst —
The Timeline
His Grandchildren