Services set for Trubee A. Krothe

Services have been set for Friday, Aug. 28, for Trubee A. Krothe, 68, of Ventnor, N.J., a retired district director for SEPTA, who died in a Burlington Township motorcycle accident on Saturday, Aug. 22.

Mr. Krothe was driving his motorcycle east on Woodmansie Boulevard in Woodland about 12:15 p.m. Saturday when it veered off the road and hit a tree, police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Fred Iezzi, a foot and ankle surgeon, knew Mr. Krothe as a fellow rower at the Bachelors Barge Club on Boathouse Row in Philadelphia and at the Viking Rowing Club in Ventnor.

"He was a good rower," Iezzi said, and "a great bow - the one that steers the boat."

At Viking, he was also known as the man to go to when a scull needed repairs.

"He fixed all the boats at the boathouse," Iezzi said. Whenever there was a problem, he said, the call rang out, "Where's Trubee?"

Born in Somers Point, N.J., Mr. Krothe grew up in Ocean City and Jenkintown, and left Abington High School at 17 to enlist in the Army.

He served two tours of duty as a helicopter door gunner in the 101st Airborne Division during the Vietnam conflict, his wife, Anne, said, and from 1989 to 2004 was in a chemical warfare unit of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.

Mr. Krothe began at SEPTA in 1972 as a trolley driver on the Route 23 line between South Philadelphia and Chestnut Hill, and completed his career in 2011 as a district director of transportation in Norristown.

The Krothes resided in Warminster from 1975 to 2012, when they began to split their years between Ventnor and Wilmington, N.C., where he was a member of the Cape Fear River Rowing Club.

He had gotten into sculls in the 1990s because daughter Annemarie was rowing on the Inland Waterway near Ventnor.

"He just took to it," his wife said, enough to have sculls in both New Jersey and North Carolina.

Before his fatal accident, she said, "he was out rowing Saturday morning at the Ventnor Viking Club."

Besides his wife and daughter Annemarie Petroff, Mr. Krothe is survived by daughter Helene, two sisters, and two grandchildren.

A visitation was set from 1 to 3 p.m. Friday at the Ocean City (N.J.) Tabernacle, 550 Wesley Ave., before a 3 p.m. life celebration there.

Donations may be sent to www.woundedwarriorproject.org.

Condolences may be offered to the family at http://ghwimberg.com.